How to Keep Mice Out of an RV

Some of the age old battles RVr's have is trying to keep rodents, especially mice out of the rigs during storage. The first place we're gonna start is in the front end. I wanna look at the engine compartment. This unit happens to be a gas engine. So we've got more engine compartment in this area here but we're gonna look for anything that may have an opening especially with this unit.

It's got the circuit breakers right up here in this panel. If this panel's loose, then they can actually get in here. We'll take this off. And I've seen where some of these because they're very hard to take off and put on some people don't even put the panel back on. There we go all the way to the side.

So as you can see, there's quite an open access into here. So I could see where if this panel wasn't on, you could have a mouse come right up through this front compartment. There might be a little bit of a distance here but if I get some snow and so forth, they can crawl up and come in here. I wanna make sure everything in here is sealed. Now, if you had a diesel pusher, the engine would be in the back and your generator would be up front here.

So you would actually have a lot more firewall dash structure in here. So it's important to take a look at this. A little tip on finding these is we're gonna put a light on the inside where we put it right on the floor, shine it right at the foot feed and underneath the dash area. And then we're gonna turn off all the lights in here and we're gonna take a look at any place light may be coming out. That's a place where mice can get into.

So with that, if you don't have a storage shed you can do this with, you can do it outside at night. You could do it and put a big black tarp over the top of this, just so you can see that light. So I'm gonna install a light in the inside of it and we're gonna turn the lights off. So we just put a bright light inside on the floor on the driver's compartment shining right here. We're gonna look in this area to see if we see any light coming through.

So let's hit the light. And we see there's quite a bit of light coming off of the side panel here, but that's pretty much protected. I wanna look all the way around there to make sure that that's all sealed. But with this cover off, we can see quite a few openings in here. So that's a critical area to make sure that completely is sealed.

And you can do this on your rig. Just lay it down on the floor. The next thing we're gonna check is on the passenger compartment. So we've moved the light over to the passenger side done the same thing, put it down on the floor while shining it right at the front engine cowling down inside. So once again, we'll hit the lights.

I got a pretty powerful light in there and I don't see anything coming through. So hit the lights and we see this engine compartment is really pretty tight. We do wanna watch this area here make sure that's always on so you can do the same thing. The last thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go up on top of the dash and just put it right up, shine it on the top and then I'm going to look through the bottom side here, underneath and I'm gonna get down into the creeper and just slide in underneath and we'll take a look at that. So we'll put the light up here.

So when I come under here, what I'm gonna be looking at is up on that dash. I can see right now that the dash structure, the firewall everything in here, I've got the light positioned up on the top. So I'm gonna look for any light rays coming through that area. Let's go ahead and hit the lights. And this front end is sealed pretty well.

I didn't see any light going through there. So we're just gonna make our way back and do the same thing where we would turn all the lights on inside the coach and use that for our light source. But then we're also gonna look at any of the wires that would protrude through our wheel wells and so forth. So we're gonna move for the back end of the coach. So the first thing I'ma looking at is the wheel wells and lot of manufacturers will put a plastic formed wheel well around the front of it.

This one happens to be open. I do see on this one here, we've got a little bit of a gap on the back corner here. So I'm gonna use a little bit of this expandable foam. You can use silicone or undercoating of that type of stuff I like using this 'cause it kinda works its way in there, be a little gentle with it so you're not forcing it into certain areas. I'm just gonna put a little bit up into this and then there's another area in here that's pretty critical to look at.

And especially in motor homes where the engine compartment's at, I see right here, going up this chassis that I have a wide open shot up into what's called the dog house. I see the air cleaner in here, the fiberglass doghouse. Now inside, a lot of times the gaskets and so forth. I can't fill this hole here. Do anything with that because I need the space for the heat.

But if I don't have the doghouse on tight if the gaskets peeled off anywhere we don't have the bolts down. That's a wide open path to get up inside my RV. So I need to, when we go inside I'm gonna make sure that doghouse is good and solid. Okay and then coming down the side here, we're gonna look for anything that's coming out of the floor any kind of wires, any hoses, LP lines, that type of stuff. I don't see much in this area here.

So I don't have any way of getting in there. And this is one of my compartments right here. I'm also gonna be really look closely at these compartments too now you may not think that mice or rodents can jump up this far up in here but if you get some wind and snow build up, it's real easy for them to up into this area. Once they get into a compartment, they can get into your RV in a basement model, because you've got a lot of access on crossover storage and in that basement area. So you wanna make sure you look at all those areas.

This looks pretty good in here. Nothing along the seams. Now I've got an LP line in here and this LP line here actually goes into the heater. So I'm not sure if there's any access to that but I do definitely wanna make sure I fill that up as well. Any opening that I can fill, we'll make sure that we don't have any place that they can get up into.

Now this is my service center. One of the things I noticed right here is this center, generally is gonna have this open here. I wanna make sure all these compartments are closed. I have a cover that would go on this one here, I wanna keep that shut when I store this unit because again, if they can get up into the service compartment, whether it's through this electrical hole right here, this drain hole here, once I'm, they're inside this there's a clear path going straight up through the front. So we look at the C nuts right here.

The one we just saw up in the front all the way across. We wanna make sure that we don't have any gaps all the way around the edging here. And specially in the back compartment here. So that looks good. Now let's take a look at the back end.

So when we come around the back, we're just gonna look for anything coming out the back end here. I don't see anything, open, no wires hoses, on this side. I do see a couple of things over here. We're gonna have to pay attention to, we've got a drain hose coming out and we have our back door step area. Now we typically don't see a lot of second doors on these but on your trailers, you may have a front and a back door, especially the toy haulers.

And this is area that has pulled away from our steps, bracket has pulled away from the floor and there's a gap. Again, not sure if that goes up inside but I'm assuming that it at least go up into that step well and then we'd get inside but this one I know does so. We're gonna have to address this. I've got three more drain plugs that are coming in here. It looks like they have tried to put a little bit of gasket in there, but the gasket has moved out.

And like I said, a mouse could get in a hole less than a size of a dime. So we've taken care of most everything. And remember any smallest little crack, any little if you've got drain, holes are coming through the smallest little sliver of an opening they can get in that. So make sure you use silicone or use expandable spray on everything that you see coming out of this floor area here. So let's go inside and show a few precautions that we can take inside.

Stepping into the RV, the very first thing I see here is our battery compartment. And a lot of people don't realize that this compartment has to be vented. So it's all open to the outside on both sides of this here. So if this top compartment here, this cover isn't on sealed tight with the, got the latches on the side here. It also has a locking mechanism on the front and the seal isn't all the way around good, they could still get up in there.

And I see we've got a little bit of an issue right here. So I'm gonna put a little bit of silicone in that. Maybe even change that gasket and get it nice and solid and then lock it down. So let's step inside. During our inspection underneath I showed the engine compartment and specifically this dog house.

This is the area I'm talking about. This is the engine cover on a gas model and you see where we've got a ridge all the way around the side here. If that's not, the gasket's not all in place, if it's not bolted down or connected real good on the sides, we've got a place where mice can crawl up in and get all around the stock house. So it will make sure that is it's good and secure. Now this unit has one of the instrument clusters that'll open up.

So if you've got one of these, you wanna spend a little bit of time going through looking at any of these hoses that may go in through the firewall any of the air conditioning, heating stuff, wire harnesses that type of stuff. Now, most of this is going into the front cab. It's not actually going into the firewall and into the engine compartment outside. So the next thing we wanna do is make sure we get all the food out of the RV. We don't want to have anything in the pantries, in the compartments, the drawers, anything, get everything out, refrigerator.

Mice can smell food from a mile away. So once we get all that out, we seal all the compartments, then the next thing you might wanna do is do some kind of a deterrent. Whether it's a bait, my dad likes to use moth balls. It seems to work for him but it takes about three to four months to get that smell out of the unit. So whatever happens to be your choice, there's some great products out in the market.

Look at where you're storing it to. If you're putting it into a place where there's a lot of grain or corn or stuff like that you're gonna have a lot of mice in those areas. Put some of your bait around all the points of entry, around all the tires outside, the perimeter of the unit itself. So a little bit of precaution, what your preference is in a deterrent and you can keep mice out of the inside of your RV.