Keeping rodents away from your RV

Wayne

Wayne

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Staff member
Last winter we had an unfortunate event, which was lots of chewed wires in our truck.

Pack Rat chew damage on truck wiring harnesses and more

We spent part of the winter of 2023 at Palm Creek Resort in Casa Grande. We were there for about 6 weeks, then Austin, TX for about 2 weeks. We had no troubles with the truck while in AZ and TX. On the way home in March, we both thought we could smell something strange in the truck heater...
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I did a lot of reading out how to prevent this from happening again. There seem to be all sorts of remedies, like sounds, lights, traps, chemicals, etc. I wanted a method that was simple and effective. From what I gathered, peppermint oil is highly effective if you keep the oil fairly fresh. Peppermint oil smells good to us humans, but evidently it stinks terribly to animals. I can say that our dogs want nothing to do with it.

I bought this peppermint oil on Amazon - $35 for 16oz. This stuff is way strong. It does smell good, but it is super powerful.
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I tried cutting off soda cans and food cans, but I have a propensity to cut myself on sharp edges :-(
The perfect solution is sardine cans. Pour oil on a cotton ball until the ball is soaked. The oil will slowly evaporate over the course of a month. The oil is so strong that if you leave a soaked cotton ball in the garage, the smell is amazingly strong. I will also put a can under the hood of the truck and maybe a couple on the ground near the tires.
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I put several around the trailer and in the generator cabinet. It's gonna smell like peppermint, but hopefully the rodents will leave it alone.
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As we will be in AZ this winter I don't want to take any chances so I am going to continue to use lights under the camper and truck WITH peppermint oil infusions! Keeping my fingers crossed that it will all work, now if there was a way to keep the Javalinas away, those ugly things are everywhere in state parks there.
 
We've been using peppermint oil since shortly after we got this trailer in 12/20. We saw mouse evidence fairly early and researched repellents. So far it's been working. Keeping the cottonballs in metal or food safe plastic is necessary, the oil will damage surfaces as we found out.
 
Azjeff said:
We've been using peppermint oil since shortly after we got this trailer in 12/20. We saw mouse evidence fairly early and researched repellents. So far it's been working. Keeping the cottonballs in metal or food safe plastic is necessary, the oil will damage surfaces as we found out.
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I am going to use empty washed out tuna cans, I did see your post about the metal containers and I really liked your idea of the oil, so much better than nasty chemicals. Thanks for sharing.
 
I'd sure run a tuna or sardine can through the dishwasher, who knows what would be attracted to any fishy smells? Raccoons, bears, mountain lions...:oops:
 
Azjeff said:
I'd sure run a tuna or sardine can through the dishwasher
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I keep running sardine cans through until the labs sniff the can and aren't interested, usually three times. We have had a bear in our neighborhood as recently as a month ago and don't need one to be interested in opening the trailer.
 
Wayne said:
I keep running sardine cans through until the labs sniff the can and aren't interested, usually three times. We have had a bear in our neighborhood as recently as a month ago and don't need one to be interested in opening the trailer.
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Some bleach in the wash water makes a big difference.
 
I checked the peppermint oil level and smell in the cans I put around the trailer. They have been there for about 2 months and still smelled strongly of peppermint, but had started to dry out. I refreshed the peppermint with about a teaspoon on each cotton ball. There was zero evidence of any rodent intrusion.

Battery storage and hydraulics area:
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I have one electric mousetrap in my RV.. funny but we don't seem to have many mice where I live, I suspect its because there are so many predators where I live.. don't even see many raccoons or possum where I live, probably because of the combination of hawks, owls, eagles, pythons, bear, fox, bobcat and the occasional panther.
 
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