Mouse Free - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Linda · Hostess

Mouse Free

Fordiesel250 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Can you give me some insight into the use of mouse free that you used. Feedback on the product. How often does it have to be applied and is it worth using.

Jim Dean · RV-Dreams Family Member

This looks like a lot of work to apply. DW and I are staying at The Ranch SKP park between Carlsbad and Artesia NM. This preserve is in the desert where mice are a problem. The folks that live here use rope lights or trouble lights under their rigs and other vehicles. The rodents are nocturnal creatures and will not go in places that are illuminated. Some of the folks have solar powered rope lights that can be used when boon docking. for the week that we were here we followed the same method and did not have mice problems. A neighbor across the street did not illuminate the area under his truck engine and mice got in the engine compartment and started chewing the firewall and building a nest. He illuminated his truck from that point on and had no further troubles with mice.

ahoweth · RV-Dreams Family Member

Interesting! I always thought those under the rig lights were just for looks. I never once thought about them being used to deter mice. What a novel approach to rodent control! I'll have to look into this further. Thanks for the heads up!

Jim Dean · RV-Dreams Family Member

I discovered another reason to keep the lights on under the trailer! I had not been diligent about plugging in the lights each night and one morning I went to retrieve the blue boy from under the trailer to drain the gray tank. When I moved it I discovered an 18" rattlesnake had taken up residence under the blue boy where it was dark. Now I am going to plug in the lights every night. Not sure if the lights would have kept this one away but why take chances.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Jim Dean wrote:
I discovered another reason to keep the lights on under the trailer! I had not been diligent about plugging in the lights each night and one morning I went to retrieve the blue boy from under the trailer to drain the gray tank. When I moved it I discovered an 18" rattlesnake had taken up residence under the blue boy where it was dark. Now I am going to plug in the lights every night. Not sure if the lights would have kept this one away but why take chances.

Jim,

I'm not so sure the lights will make a difference with snakes, especially rattlesnakes. They are not nocturnal. However, they will sometimes curl up next to something that will block the wind or will hold residual daytime heat.

When we were on the farm, we would have to watch under the large rear tires of tractors when we went to lubricate the tractors in the mornings. They would sometimes curl up next to the tire for that residual warmth when the nights were cool.

I forgot one morning and crouched down to lubricate one side and then crossed to the other side to lubricate that side. That is when I noticed the rattler at the tire on the side I first worked on. I was within 18 inches of him, but I guess he decided it was too cold to strike. While I always wore boots, my thigh would have been an excellent target for him.

It is always wise when camping to watch where one steps (never OVER a log) and be alert for every kind of snake.

Terry

Jim Dean · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry,
I kinda thought about the lights not helping with rattlesnakes since we see them during the day. We were in a windy location so it might have been escaping the wind as you suggested.

lmcallis · RV-Dreams Family Member

Last winter was the first time we'd not full timed in our 5th wheel in 4 years. We parked it out on my brothers farm in Iowa in October. I'd sealed up everything I could find with foam in a can, put mouse poison, lots of dryer sheets, and ultrasonic sound repellers in the basement and living areas (the rig was plugged into power over the winter). When we came back in April, it was obvious that Iowa is full of deaf mice that can't smell anything as there were droppings everywhere including all over the dryer sheets and next to the ultrasound boxes and all the mouse poison was gone. They even went after my wooden traps which were wrapped up in a ziplock bag but still had the last victim's peanut butter on the trap. There was even a freeze dried one waiting to welcome us back. We thought it was one of the cat's toys when we first saw it.

I ordered two gallons of Mouse-Free last Friday and it arrived on Wednesday. I'll be spraying the underside of the 5th wheel in September before we put it back in the same spot in Iowa for the winter. I'll let you know how many visitors we hopefully don't get this winter.

lmcallis · RV-Dreams Family Member

As promised, here's the status of our 5th wheel after being parked at my brother's farm from Sept, 2012 to Dec, 2012 and using Mouse Free spray on repellent on the underside of the 5th wheel prior to parking it on the farm. As you can read in my prior post (above), for the 2010-2011 storage, we used everything we had heard would keep the mice out (exept mouse free).....and they came anyway and had a great time.

This time, we only used mouse free, spraying it on the underside areas I felt were the risky areas for mouse activity. We came back to a 5th wheel that had had a mouse in only one drawer, and then not for very long based on the few little black calling cards it left behind.

So I think the mouse free definitely helped. The 5th wheel was stored in the exact same spot, outside, both years. The only difference was the mouse free this year. However this year I left the 5th wheel hitched to the truck, but didn't think to mouse free the under side of the truck. So, I know the mice were around in numbers as they built some nice nests in the air vent system of the truck. There is a chance that the mouse that left it's calling cards in the one drawer came into the 5th wheel through the truck, the hitch and housing and then into the basement and then into the drawer. This fall I'll mouse free the underside to the truck.

Some other comments....

1) I didn't spray as much as Howard did. I covered the access paths, sewer lines, wheel wells, axles, shocks, etc and undersides of the slides, but I didn't spray the large underside areas that are continuous plastic. I sprayed any seams/joints. This meant I didn't have to do much crawling under the rig except to spray around the wheels.

2) I used the sprayer that came free with an order for 2 gallons of mouse free. I used my Viair hose as the air hose and my 5th wheel tires as the air supply. The sprayer worked well from the 110 lbs normal pressure down to 70 lbs in the tire. Then I just hooked up to a different tire to spray a different part of the rig. When done, I didn't clean anything, just left the remaining spray in the sprayer or in the plastic jugs it came in.

3) I used about half a gallon of mouse free for our 39ft 5th wheel so for 2 gallons for $200, that's $50 a year. Not bad compaired to all the clean up we had to do last year before we used mouse free.

4) If you buy or use mouse free, I hope your experience is as good as our's was this time. I have no affiliation with mouse free except as a customer.

Lance

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

All I can say is thanks for the advice, warnings and ick, ick, yeeeeek!! Sorry, this is not something I am looking forward to dealing with, thank goodness DH is better at this kind of stuff than I am!!

nightsky · RV-Dreams Family Member

Lance, did all those mice gnaw their way into your rig, or are there seriously gaps large enough that mice can enter easily? If so, what does that say about cold/damp infiltration in a rig if there are openings big enough for mice to get in (and yes, I realize they can squeeze through really small spaces).

lmcallis · RV-Dreams Family Member

Yes, mice can squeeze through really small gaps, like a 1/4 inch. And finding all those gaps around sewer pipes, or bottom covers slide out seal is difficult. And yes, around the hitch, where the pin box connects to the frame of the 5th wheel, you've got openings of several inches sealed only with fiberglass insulation.....which is just a nice blanket for a cold mouse. As for cold infiltration, that's why headed tanks and a heated basement is needed if you're winter camping. We did just fine in Iowa at about 0 degrees when we opened up the rig on Christmas day, (after returning from SE Asia where the temps were in the 90's) but it took two days to really warm everything up.

Lance

Jwar · RV-Dreams Family Member

Good information about mouse free, also stuffing steel wool around the sewer hose opening and water/elect cabel opening to the RV (gaps) will deture rodents as they dont like to chew on steel wool. Never tried it, Might be a wives tale ???

Now as for snakes...when as a young lad in the boy scouts our Scoutmaster told us to lay a rope around our tent's to keep the rattle snakes away, We were up all night stealing each others ropes..LOL.....lets see a 40ft by 8 ft MH...Dang...now that will be a long rope!!!

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well, I'm not an "old wife," but I can attest to the fact that steel wool will deter a mouse from going through a space where it is located. It doesn't hurt to also make sure that there are no other avenues where they can find a place to gnaw new holes. In other words, if the gap around a pipe (a place for them to access a panel) is filled with steel wool, also make sure there is nowhere else that they can stand or hold onto to start a new hole.

Terry

PIEERE · RV-Dreams Family Member

Dang!!!! Hate them meeces to pieces!!! Cats are a big deterent!!!

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our cat, Evita, does not live in the basement so we have had a couple basement intruders, but they don't seem to stay long. When a mouse gets in upstairs Evita kills it and leaves it for us to find later since it is no longer fun once it stops moving. She doesn't seem interested in eating them, probably because they don't taste like fish. But we are not going to leave our cat in our RV when stored.

BVC · RV-Dreams Family Member

What's it like for the mechanic to work on the underside of the rig in the future? Does it dry up a bit or is it a sticky gooey mess and not fun to work on.

Bruce

Linda · Hostess

Well, if a mechanic had to work on the rig shortly after the application, it would be kind of messy. It is the texture of Petrolium Jelly but it does have a nice peppermint smell.

It does eventually wear off with travel.

RobinG · RV-Dreams Community Member

I've been doing a lot of research on the mouse issue in RV's and I saw a video on youtube where an RV dealer was saying NOT to use steel wool near anything electrical as it can cause a fire. Apparently, steel wool burns very easily and very quickly. Please, pass that on.