As a Texas recreational vehicle owner, you take great pride in your home away from home. And taking the best care possible of it, both inside and out, is one of your biggest responsibilities as an owner. However, there are some forces that are always acting against you like the weather and critters! Unfortunately, pests and critters can do real damage to your RV, and are often down right unpleasant for many folks. Mice and other rodents can chew through and ruin wiring, upholstery, and plumbing. You definitely do not want these pests inside your RV or in its storage areas.
The number one pest to RVers and the ones that cause the most damage are mice. These critters try to find a way to get into your RV all times during the year, but especially during the winter months where they are looking for a warm place to hang out. If you store your RV you’ll want to take a few extra steps to protect your RV which I’ll mention soon. The simplest way to keep pests away is keep your RV as clean as possible.
- If storing your RV Texas:
- don’t stack anything around the RV such as wood or bales of hay
- set mouse traps
- use mothballs (it’s recommended to put several in bowl that have slits in them and then place the bowls around the RV so that you can clean them up when the RV is time for use)
- store the RV on solid ground, like payment or concrete
- thoroughly clean the inside of the RV and don’t leave any food inside
The above are good tips, but a great way to keep mice and other critters out is to block all ways of them coming in. Inspect the underside of your RV for any gaps or holes. One way to do this is to wait until dark, open and illuminate all interior closets and cabinets next to the floor, and then look for places where light is coming through. Or do the opposite and light up the outside of the RV and see if you can see light coming through into a darkened RV interior.
Fill any gaps using silicone or expanding foam. Important: expanding foam can expand a lot more than you might expect – so experiment first on something other than your RV. Guard against using so much foam that you damage something when it expands. One advantage to this foam is that it can be easily removed if the plumbing or wiring has to be worked on. A related idea is to use stainless-steel wool into the openings AND then spray expandable foam into the steel wool. Using duct tape to secure the stainless-steel wool (not regular steel wool) has also been suggested to block openings.
If you have any great pest deterrent tips we’d love to hear from you. Just post below and as always come by any conveniently located ExploreUSA RV Supercenter.
