Oh No!!!! Mice in my friend's SOB trailer

Good morning!!

Does anyone have any good ideas for keeping mice out?? One of our good friends has a Keystone Avalanche 5th wheel. .. Brand new.. She is bad problems with mice!! I told her it was they didn't buy a Heartland lol!! Never had that issue so I'm not sure how to fix the problem. Is it possible to go in an spray a foam sealant around pipes?? I don't think I would use poison..

Thanks!!! Any help I can pass on will be appreciated..

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

Yes, using spray foam is a good idea. Might also want to use some metal screen embedded in the foam.
There is also a product called Mouse Free. I've heard good reports about it.

Peace
Dave

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

Spray foam is a great start. There is a foam spray made with a bitter component specifically to help deal with pests. Pestblock by Dow Great stuff is one product. It is tan in color but paintable.
I used the black, Pond and stone, version of great stuff and did not have any mice issues once the holes underneath were filled.

You may need additional devices such as traps or poison bait stations if the problem is severe.
I also set so many traps inside and checked them frequently. I only ever caught one mouse but it certainly was not from a lack of trying. There was no further evidence of mice once I filled the holes and kept checking the traps. I set the traps in locations that even if a mouse came through a hole, the only option was to continue through the trap.

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

MouseFree WORKS! I HAD mice until I started applying it to the frame and struts, once a year. No more mice or crawling insects. It has a peppermint scent that you really can't smell well, but rodents and bugs hate it. The stuff is also very slippery, so they can't climb around. I would also recommend sealing all the large openings and gaps before applying the MouseFree.

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

thanks so much your your input. We are going out this afternoon to get the foam sealant for our Elkridge as well. If our neighbors have mice issues we may eventually have them too. Might as well get all the holes sealed now. . I

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

We have mouse bait stations in the basement and in cabinets, etc. About 10 of them throughout the trailer. We have had no problems in our previous trailer and don't expect any in this one.

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

We heard of a "trick" to try last year & so far it "apparently" has worked. We were told to put the white rope lights around the coach, with everything that touches the ground inside the rope lights. After 2 years of gate guarding for the winter in Texas, we had NO mice, while other gate guards down there were constantly having problems. The lights must be on 24/7.

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

If your Elkridge has the large downfacing port in the Universal Docking Center (UDC) where the water hose and TV cable come in, you may want to seal those up while you are camping by getting some hard foam gardening kneeling pads (you can find them at the 98 cent store) and cut a circle to the size of the access hole, a slit to the center of the disk, and then a smaller hose-sized hole in the center. Run your water hose and TV cable through this disk and mount it into the access hole to plug it up from rodents.

When I was closing up the trailer to move from West Yellowstone, Montana two years ago, I didn't have this foam disk in place and discovered a mouse in the UDC. Before I could do anything he jumped into the storage compartment and back into the depths of the trailer. I had to move all of my foodstuffs to cabinets I determined were mouse-sealed, set traps, and finally after about 3 months in the storage facility caught the last of the 3 mice who had "come aboard" in West Yellowstone. After I got rid of them, I put dryer sheets under all of the bottom drawers and in all the cabinets. No more mouse problems.

Look at post # 7 in this thread. We've been doing that for 2 years now, and not 1 mouse in the coach. This includes gate guarding in TX, sitting in the middle of nowhere, basically in a cow pasture, while other gate guards are getting swamped with them. Before doing this, we volunteered for the Forest Service in WY, and would catch sometimes 3 a day.

I've used dryer sheets two boxes everywhere, foamed all openings under sinks/cabinets, fox pee in pill containers with holes drilled in them - they still came in. This year I will add Peppermint oil and anything else I can find and put it out in August since Sept. is too late.

This is how we keep the mice out:



They take care of those darned miller moths, too!

Come to Texas... we have mice so big they can't get in the little places.
About like this one.

Re: Oh No!!!! Mice

Bill, thanks for the tip about the foam disc in the docking station - that's a great idea!! I have two barn cats that take of mice in our barn but I haven't convinced my DH to let me make them our traveling companions yet but I'm working on it!! I think I will try the Mouse Free too. Thanks again for the tips!