Our new grill has seen quite a bit of use recently, although last night we discovered that grilling salmon doesn't work too well - it falls apart and is nearly impossible to flip or to lift off the grill without creating a huge mess.
The problem we've come up with recently is with mice. This past weekend, as I was grilling some veggies, I noticed a mouse in our courtyard, which ran away when I came out to check on things. Later, when I grabbed the cover to put back on the grill, a mouse was hiding under there. And last night, I noticed a good bit of mouse droppings on the side-trays. This could be a problem. I don't want the Hanta virus.
So what are our solutions? We can't move the grill indoors - it's hooked to our outdoor gas line, and even moving it into the garage would be a huge undertaking. We'd likely never use it if we had to store it in the garage. I very much doubt we can close the grill off by use of the cover - mice can get into nearly anything. And placing mousetraps or poison is also pretty much out of the question. We're in a pretty wild open area - placing poison would be basically trying to kill all the mice in the local ecosystem. Not an option.
If you've got any advice, I'd love to hear it.