Another Rodent Question

[djpalmis]

Use Peppermint spray inside and around the outside of the motorhome. It worked for me. It is available from amazon.

[glwinger]

Originally Posted by Unplanned Tourist

BTW, poison should be used as a last resort. Birds and other good animals can die after eating a "free" meal of a poisoned mouse. :(

Lots of good info here, but I like the 5 gallon bucket traps the best. 6 inches of water will drown the little critters.

One way to prevent birds and other larger animals from getting the bait is to enclose the bait station in chicken wire. Those one inch holes will prevent birds, rabbits and most squirrels and your pets from getting to the bait. Mice have no problem getting through. Same with chipmunks, who are just as bad as mice, maybe more so.

Just remember, mice eating the bait look then look for a water source and a place to hide. Hopefully not in the RV.

[grldst]

Putting bait inside the RV is inviting the rodents to come it. Put sticky pads inside, baited traps outside. Do not park on grass. Leave a bright light on…we use a bright LED rope light…50 footer and lots of peppermint soaked cotton balls.

Putting bait inside is the worse thing to do.

[Tbroeck]

We have used Irish Spring original scent soap for 5 years. We place 10 new bars each year and have not had a problem since we did this. We live 3 miles in the country along a creek.

[Parkers2ca]

Originally Posted by Unplanned Tourist

Clean any food crumbs up and put all cooking and kitchen drawer contents into plastic totes. Block any place they could enter.

Prevention is better than dealing with an infestation.

Excellent advice, they can smell food for miles. Removing paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, kleenex, newspaper), seems to help as well.

[BusBrad]

Whilst cats kill rats and mice, they indiscriminately kill lots of wildlife too. Don't think allowing cats to roam and kill anything they desire is a responsible way to deal with the problem. They also breed like rabbits, and roaming domestic cats results in an uncontrollable abundance of feral cats wreaking havoc... particularly as so many owners don't have them neutered.
Poison is a very cruel method of killing anything, vermin or otherwise.
I've had success with the bucket trap method, though find cage traps work best.

[BusBrad]

Whilst cats kill rats and mice, they indiscriminately kill lots of wildlife too. Don't think allowing cats to roam and kill anything they desire is a responsible way to deal with the problem. They also breed like rabbits, and roaming domestic cats results in an uncontrollable abundance of feral cats wreaking havoc... particularly as so many owners don't have them neutered.
Poison is a very cruel method of killing anything, vermin or otherwise.
I've had success with the bucket trap method, though find cage traps work best.

[bross]

Originally Posted by BusBrad

Whilst cats kill rats and mice, they indiscriminately kill lots of wildlife too. Don't think allowing cats to roam and kill anything they desire is a responsible way to deal with the problem. They also breed like rabbits, and roaming domestic cats results in an uncontrollable abundance of feral cats wreaking havoc... particularly as so many owners don't have them neutered.
Poison is a very cruel method of killing anything, vermin or otherwise.
I've had success with the bucket trap method, though find cage traps work best.

Coyotes keep the barn cats in check around here. While an advocate of the bucket method, it only works for 5-6 months around here, the other 6 months the mice would need skates.

[Unplanned Tourist]

Originally Posted by bross

Coyotes keep the barn cats in check around here. While an advocate of the bucket method, it only works for 5-6 months around here, the other 6 months the mice would need skates.

6 inches of used antifreeze works.

[Mongobird]

You will have to make every effort you can to seal up your unit. This means steel wool, foam, and so on. Mice can get through any opening they can get their skull through.

That aside once the mouse is into the house, so to speak, you want to kill him as quickly as possible. You want to avoid poisons, because the mouse will hide as it dies and your trailer will stink.

The most reliable, and by the way cost-effective, solution that I have found is to use the rat zapper, which is a product by Victor. Bait, I use peanut butter, is put in the trap and 4D size batteries are put in the trap. When a mouse comes along it gets electrocuted.

I take the mice and dump them in a hedgerow, and they are gone within hours. Birds and other animals get to eat them without poison in them. Cats don't get poisoned.

Since the peanut butter will likely stick to the trap when you dump out the mouse, I just cycle the power switch and put it back in place. When the fields get harvested there is always an uptick in mice, and I can clear to sometimes three mice out of the trap each day. It takes less time to dump the trap than it does to set the old fashioned mouse trap. And you don't have any dead mice living in a partition stinking up your RV, as you might have with poisons.

The zapper is under $50 and available for multiple sources. If you have one mouse chew up wires in your RV or die in a partition, the $50 will seem cheap.

Since my RV is in a barn, I put the rat zapper in the barn. Peanut butter is very aromatic and we don't keep food in the RV. So the presumption is that they get attracted to the trap first. So far this approach has worked for me for quite a few years.

I have tried the drowning buckets, which don't work in sub freezing temperatures, poisons, conventional old-fashioned mouse traps, ultrasonic devices, flashing leds, peppermint, dryer sheets, essential oils, you name it. The rat zapper has outperformed each of those with a lower cost per mouse caught and killed.

[Aerostar251g]

Originally Posted by BPD138

I'm at a total loss of what to do about rodent prevention. Our motorhome is stored on the mowed grass on the side of the house with the tires up on blocks. I don't have power running to it.

I don't have any rodents there now but I want to prevent them from entering. I have been reading a lot about keeping rodents out of the motorhome and understand the "usual" methods of protection. The issue I'm having is; all the reviews I read have positive and negative results. The "popular" products with lots of good reviews also have terrible reviews. I'm having a real hard time of what to do. Can anyone give me some real world reviews, opinions or suggestions on how they prevent rodent's from entering the motorhome?

You leave the poison in the coach or camper hidden where nothing but small Critters can enter

[twinboat]

Just watched an add for mouse proofing undercoating spray. Uses peppermint oil and other stuff.

NH Oil Undercoating sells it.

[twinboat]

Maybe this stuff

[Towboy]

I put a couple 12 volt strobe lights in the basement area connected to a photoelectric switch so light turn on at darkness.

We shall see