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Old 08-30-2008, 06:29 PM   #1
dfranke
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Angry Love my TM, so do mice.

I am a 2619 owner for about a year now. Last time I used my TM was in June. Its parked outside (covered) on a gravel pad. We were not going to open it up before a trip next week but now we are glad we did. Mouse nest in rear bumper which is not to bad. However the mice were having a field day inside. Chewed a hole in the bath curtain, chewed up toilet paper, paper towles and generally made a mess. Does anyone have any experiance with where I might begin to look for entry points?

I did not cover the furnace exhausts to the outside. I also noticed a rather inviting area around the sewage pipe where it enters the TM but can't see far enough in to see if that should be blocked off. You would think it would be.

When closed, is it possible that mice could enter between the two shells, particularly around the door?

Last, any suggestions for keeping them out other than parking in a secured area? I have used moth balls, dryer sheets etc. in cars I have stored but am looking for other ideas. Thanks for your help.

Don
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Old 08-30-2008, 06:34 PM   #2
P and B
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Is it plugged in all the time? The only reason I ask is there are sonic systems that might annoy them enough to keep them out. I'm worried about this myself. I put some mouse poison in the TM when I closed it up for winter last year. I also trapped a bunch in the garage- about 20 feet from the TM. I might have reduce their numbers such that there were none left to raid the RV. The dealer said to spread moth balls around the outside of the TM. I know you were looking for some other solution.

Phil
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Old 08-30-2008, 07:19 PM   #3
nonichris
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Default Nesting Materials

We have had lots of field mice in our house in California and in our class C RV...they seem to be more abundant in the spring when they are nesting, and they do like to make nests with paper towels..We use live traps if we can be close by, but don't really have any good solutions except not to leave food other than canned food in the TM and to take out the paper goods. We have a couple of galvanized trash cans away from the TM to store things we think the mice may be interested in. They can get through the teeniest cracks and spaces, so it is almost impossible to keep them out. We would never put poison out because of the dogs, but mothballs can be kept in the original opened boxes and left in cupboards, and we have heard but not confirmed that rodents don't like mothballs. Mice are our biggest worry, almost more because they chew on insulation too, and can do some real damage. Last spring there must have been a nest in the wheel well of the Class C, as we were at a fairgrounds, and baby mice began to appear under the vehicle and were running out in all directions, poor things. We don't want to harm them or kill them, just to figure out a way to make our stuff unattractive to them. Chris did his PhD research on desert rodents, so you might think we would have better ideas on how to dissuade them...In Costa Rica we once resorted to putting a 2 meter boa constrictor in our cupboards to deal with rats...I don't think that worked either.
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Old 08-30-2008, 07:27 PM   #4
Mr. Adventure
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Default Mice...

Mice are a huge gross-out problem for Ms. Adventure, and I really don't see a solution other than ample supplies of mouse poison. Traps would work great, of course, but I'm not wild about dead mice in traps all over the trailer, either.

Years ago, we had a vacation home in West Virginia, and Mr. Adventure used to buy poisoned mouse treats by the pound at Southern States. The problem was that those little stinkers would haul it off and pile it up over acres of West Virginia, which in turn became a danger to all the other little critters for quite a ways around.

You can make it more challenging for mice to enter, but I'm not sure it's ever possible to entirely prevent them from coming in. Mr. Adventure's solution these days is to stock large quantities of the mouse poison made of waxy blocks in the TM: The bumper compartments, under the sink, behind the drawers, and most of the other places you found mouse turds in your last adventure. The blocks are too big for them to carry off, but the kinds with the "bait packs" and the green colored dog food sized chunks are too portable in Mr. Adventure's opinion. In this way, the offenders are punished, but the innocent chipmunks 1000 feet away aren't endangered. By "large quantities" I mean going to the Ace hardware store and buying one each of their 3 brands of mouse blocks, and then your own local mice will get to choose their favorite menu item in your TM. By "ample quantities", I mean watching the kind they're eating first, and then replacing that as they finish it or it starts to look gross (this same strategy works at home in the attic, crawlspace, and garage).

Of specific interest to TrailManor owners, our local Virginia varmits love to chew on the plug of the shore power cord. While one possible solution is to leave the TM plugged in, in hopes of the power company zapping someone other than the rate paying customer, Mr. Adventure instead recommends electrical tape over the site of their last attack and maintaining lots of mouse poison in this area, too.
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Old 08-30-2008, 08:12 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dfranke View Post
Does anyone have any experiance with where I might begin to look for entry points?


Last, any suggestions for keeping them out other than parking in a secured area? I have used moth balls, dryer sheets etc. in cars I have stored but am looking for other ideas. Thanks for your help.

Don
I don't think that even parking in a secured area is going to keep mice out if they want to get in. They can squeeze through the tiniest places.

The mice had played havoc with some toilet paper left by the previous owners in our TM when we bought it, and decided that I just don't want chocolate sprinkles on all of my eating stuff. Even though I respect animal life, I put a container of D-Con in the TM for the winter, and haven't had a problem since we bought it........knock on cheese.

I liked the totally natural mice eradication idea with boa constrictor also.

Chap
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Old 08-30-2008, 09:05 PM   #6
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After no mice problems for 4 years, we did find an empty nest under the kitchen sink this spring. There was no evidence of them anywhere else except under the bathroom sink and the kitchen sink (I don't know about the newer TM's, but ours are interconnected). I think that they got in around the plumbing exit pipes behind the drivers side wheelwell. I sprayed some of that expanding foam around the pipes and there hasn't been any evidence of mice since. I kept D-Con in the cabinet above the the passenger side wheelwell, and now I also keep some in the cabinet under the sink.
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Old 08-31-2008, 04:28 AM   #7
BrigCA61
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We have never had mice or rats in our TM even though we have a big open field across from where we live and lots of wildlife. The TM is parked opened in the driveway. We have seen the big rats running across the fence at dusk several times and we've had them in the garage. We also have boxed food in the TM which rodents can easily chew into. Perhaps it is because we have 2 very active Jack Russell Terrier's (bred specifically to hunt rats) and they don't want to be even close to them. Do you think rodents know the scent of dogs and will stay away?
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Old 08-31-2008, 07:40 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BrigCA61 View Post
Do you think rodents know the scent of dogs and will stay away?
No. We always had dogs, and the mice just stayed away long enough for the dog to leave or go to sleep. It's possible that once they've found found a way in, they're forever attracted to the pathways of prior mouse tenants. We've never left any food in the trailer.

I don't know about rats. The mice we had in West Virginia were the high performance white footed kind (5" or so and cute: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.ed..._leucopus.html).

The boa constrictor idea was a great one, but I think Ms. Adventure might prefer the mice. We also have the additional problem here that snakes close up shop for the winter, but mice don't.

The mice I've seen around here are the little field mice who will readily colonize TrailManors and other sheltered locations. In a 5 week July/August period this year, they finished off what was left of the 3 little blocks of poison I had put out last Fall, then built 3 nests from the paper towels and toilet paper, and chewed a small hole in the couch (which fortunately I was able to repair). They had been almost everywhere in the trailer, even in the power cord compartment, and chewed a few small holes in the ADCO cover as if they needed port holes. I now keep an expanded mouse poison menu in substantial supply in assorted TM locations where the dog can't get to them, in case the mice decide to invite their friends over for another mouse party.
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Old 08-31-2008, 08:05 AM   #9
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The waxy mouse bait can be placed into bait traps that only the mice can get into and there's no way they can drag them around. You can find them at hardware stores. I haven't had any mice in the TM yet. I suspect it's because my garage (close by) is heated and they like it better in there. Every fall, I set out about 8 traps in the garage and usually get 4 or 5. I keep the traps out until I go two or three weeks with no mice.

I put a block of the poison on the floor of the TM by the refrigerator but I don't think anything ate any of it. One warning about poisons. They are supposed to drive the animal to find water (makes them thirsty)- usually assumed to be somewhere else. Well, I had a mouse eat some of this bait right in the garage (I didn't even have it in a trap) and he didn't make it more than 10 feet before he died and smelled up the garage. That's my biggest fear with the poisons- dead smelly mouse bodies. Not much else to do though.

Phil
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Old 08-31-2008, 08:14 AM   #10
nonichris
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Default If you poison the mice, how do you

prevent your dogs or other scavengers from eating the dead or dying mice? I would be concerned about that. Rodents do not seem to be the least bit intimidated by our dogs. Their survival strategy is to have lots of offspring and early and repeated reproductive cycles, and they are extremely successful. Live traps work well, but they need to be checked every day. We release the mice at least a mile away. We have deer mice, Peromyscus bolleyi...and they are very cute in their natural habitat, but not so much in our cutlery drawer. You might be able to tell we are biologists.
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