Don't leave your Prius without driving it for very long

Why?

Because rodents, especially mice will go into your air vents just below your windshield wiper motor and trash your car in various ways including eat your insulation off the wiring harnesses which often costs 4000 to 8000 dollars or more to fix to make your vehicle drivable. Our oldest daughter travels a lot on business and left one of her Priuses here, an older one. But at some point mice likely found a way in because it hadn't been driven in over a month. So, I jump started it today and wondered if it would make it to the Toyota dealership to have it repaired and maintained.  The auxilliary battery got killed somewhere in the process. So, when I got to the dealership I asked where I should park so it wouldn't die on him where they would have to push it. He said just to leave it on and not turn it off, which is a different state than a regular gasoline or diesel car but since most of the undercarriage of a Prius is batteries likely I realized this would or could work. He said that they put a wire mesh now to solve this problem over the venting system of a Prius to keep rodents out of the wire harnesses and interior of the car because they like to make nests especially in Priuses various places (and likely especially during the winter months when mating of many species occurs along with nesting. I think they use the plastic insulation off of wiring to help make their nests since rubber or plastic insulation might keep them warmer at night if it is chewed into bits.

So, one way to help this situation is not to leave your vehicles undriven for too long to where rodents move into the (to them) abandoned vehicle because their lives are much shorter than ours so their time sense is much different than ours as humans.  

Also, if you have never jump started a Prius and need to the auxiliary battery which has a cover that sort of looks like a battery but when you take the cover off looks more like a lot of electrical busses instead. towards the back there is a little red thing you flip off which reveals a strip of metal that is shiny like aluminum or stainless steel. That is where you put the positive or REd Jumper Cable. You put the negative jumper cable on the bolt in the engine compartment to your left if you are facing in from the front of the car. 

But, it might take 2 minutes or more to get it to start. It isn't at all like starting a gasoline engine car by jumping it so you have to be patient while you wait for it to go through it's startup more like starting up a laptop computer or something from scratch. 

But, if you are not used to a hybrid the engine might run only a short time if the main battery is already charged enough