Went to change battery on a battery powered sonic repellant that was recommended by you guys due to previous infestation and I need not bother. The Caravan was riddled with mouse droppings everywhere and they have chewed some non-food items I left in there including breathable flooring for awning. I am at wits end, I have used expanding foam on everywhere I thought they could enter to block it off but obviously left vents open as they are covered with mesh.
Caravan is stored at a rural location by a local garden centre, do I:
a) Move caravan to another storage yard
b) Sell caravan
c) Pay a caravan specialist to make caravan more mouse proof
Oh I feel so sorry for you. I had the same problem in my shed, which was where I had stored the caravan cover. When I went to use it it was covered in holes and 6 mice ran out! A very expensive piece of kit I can't afford to replace, so had to patch up the best I could.
Despite moving everything and anything that could be used as bedding, the mice moved back in and I had put another item in there, which was shredded within 2 days.
So now I have put poison down. I feel very sad for the mice, but I am overrun with them (as are my neighbours) so we have to get the population down.
They can obviously smell something that is worth eating. We left our BBQ in the front locker on our van a few years ago and they got in there. Didn't get in the body of the van though.
Take everything out of the van. Leave nothing that might interest a mouse.
It was me that offerred the advice regarding a sonic repeller as it definitely worked for us but I'm sincerely sorry that it didn't solve your mouse problem. I only give advice from my own or others experience but the only solution available really now is to set traps down but if your caravan is in storage then it becomes a problem visiting the caravan on a regular basis to empty the traps of dead mice. Moving the caravan to a different location will only be beneficial if it's nearer to home otherwise you could end up with the same problem yet again. You need to remove anything that the mice can make as bedding as they will carry food to their desired destination anyway but the smell of food can usually be the initial invitation like johnks said so double check you don't have anything anywhere in you caravan associated with food. That means even a few left over bread crumbs lying about as one bread crumb to a mouse is much like a cake to us humans but if you can vacuum your caravan out this will also help in removing any foods that the eye can't see. I have a small 240 volt hand held vaccuum cleaner which is powered by my Honda generator which I take to the caravan storage occassionally and clean the carpets plus all the nooks and crannies where you find cobwebs etc. but I also removed my barbecue for reasons already mentioned so you need to double check what you have that is interesting to mice.
Dont think you could ever get a caravan totally mouse proof. The little swines will get in anywhere. As has been said before, they only go in for one reason, food or the smell of it. I know it would be a pain but poison would be my preferred weapon....
Have a word with your local pest control operative as they can supply or fit mouse proof mesh for the vents, bait stations, and other advice. If you need to use rodenticides, a professional has access to appropriate types that are not available to the general public and they will also take care to reduce the possibility of non target species taking the bait. The indiscriminate use of rodenticides is not good for the environment and has lead to the rodent population building up an immunity to many of the more commonly available poisons.
Like others have said the first step is to remove sources of food or scent of food that the mice may find attractive.
I expect you will get others saying that the 'sonic' devices work for them but as I have said previously there is no scientific evidence that they work and the ASA have in the past forced sellers of the devices to remove unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of them. If they worked I would sell them to my clients as there is a fantastic margin on them.
If I was a bit closer I would pop over to take a look but Llanelli is a bit too far out of my area.
------------- 'A sure cure for sea-sickness is to sit under a tree'
have you discussed this with the garden centre that I presume you pay for storage. Do they have any suggestions ie can it be moved elsewhere on site where it wont be so prone to mice. Just a thought
------------- Nigel
March 2012 - Dove Meadows
6th July Moving to Hayle
Once Mice enter a shed or van or anywhere else others will follow they leave a trail of urine that other mice naturally follow which is why I leave traps set all the time
Quote: Originally posted by fleetwood99 on 04/11/2012
Dont think you could ever get a caravan totally mouse proof. The little swines will get in anywhere. As has been said before, they only go in for one reason, food or the smell of it. I know it would be a pain but poison would be my preferred weapon....
They also go in for shelter and to keep warm. If they can make a nest to stay warm, they will import food from outside. Even when I had taken absolutely everything out of the shed that they could possibly make into bedding for nests, still they came back. There was no food, and no comfort either, but still they came back. The minute I put a garden kneeler in there, the kneeler bit was shredded in two days. I wouldn't be surprised if they dragged their own bedding in there as well as food!
They do have to find a way in though. So far my van at the front of the house is mouse free (touch wood!) but the shed at the back of the house, well... I've put poison down now, having tried everything else, although I hate having to do it.
We had to put traps in our van a couple of years ago - we arrived to open up one February to find it full of mouse droppings and a huge next under the back bunk courtesy of the bedding we'd left in there. We had to completely scrub every surface and clean all of the seating etc. Fortuntately they hadn't touched the fabric of the van only the bedding and anything spongey that we'd left in there. No sign of the mice until we went to bed then we could hear one scratting about under the beds etc, we saw it but couldn't catch it. We knew there must have been more than one due to the size of the nest, anyway we found one dead in my cotton wool balls (must have got in the bag and couldn'y get out) in the end we put a trap down for the other one and we caught it after a couple of days. We ended using cut up pan scrubbers to block as many holes as we could (it seems mice don't like biting through them) and also laid traps - we didn't get any more mice after that in the van itself although we did have one in the front locker.
------------- Bee
Teenager for sale! Eye rolling, back talking, temper tantrums, and I already know everything attitude included. All sales are final!
Just to update I have cleaned the Caravan out, removed the offending item a week ago (a BBQ that we didn't clean properly due to rain when we were camping). I also placed a mouse trap at either end of the van (I was advised against Mice poison as they die in places you cant get to and smell the van out apparently). When I went back to check earlier today (6 days after placing traps down) I discovered a mouse in both traps so I removed them and reset traps.
My question now is will this remove the problem or are these mice probably just a small tip of the iceberg given the mouse population in rural areas?
Dead mice are not normally too much of a problem as they don't have a lot of body mass to decompose and smell, rats are another issue but deodorising bags generally remove the smell once the offending rodent is removed. A decent bait station under the caravan will provide an alternative food source to your caravan and if the mice are not already in residence will kill them before they infest the caravan. If you want to use traps they can also be fixed into bait stations for use in the caravan or under it. I would be inclined to keep a couple of traps set on a just in case basis for a couple of months. Better to have a dead mouse than a family nesting in the upholstery.
------------- 'A sure cure for sea-sickness is to sit under a tree'
traps, poison, sonic repellant, everything really until they are gone. Its best to remove all bedding/towels from under seats and lockers and to keep a trap and poison down even when there's no sign of them. They are seeking shelter and a caravan is nice and cosy if you're a mouse.
We have had the same problem in our garage. They chewed a hole about 3 feet long in my awning roof. I was not too pleased I can tell you. At the time we had guinea pigs in there (and their food was probably also drawing them in) so were limited in the ways of getting shut...poison turned out to be the only effective way.Even after the guinea pigs were no more, we still have the odd field mouse putting in an appearance (they have teeth like razor blades and can do a lot of damage in a very short space of time) so now have invested in a plug in type sonic thing to see if that helps.
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Topic: Mice in Caravan again!!! :-(
