I’m not sure if you have ever dealt with a mouse problem in your home or RV, but those little guys can be a huge problem and we gathered up the best ideas for how to keep mice out of campers, garages, and houses. This is by far one of the cheapest (and most cruelty-free) method to keep the critters away. No need for traps!
We love to camp and this 1976 Scotty trailer was our first camper. We have made so many awesome memories in this cute little thing. Honestly, I’m not the camping type so my husband has always tried to glam it up a bit to keep me interested in going on our camping trips. One thing that is a sure way of keeping me away is critters in the camper!
Now that Fall is here, mice will find their way into RV’s, homes, and garages to keep warm so now’s the time to use one of these ideas to keep them out of your living space.
How to keep Mice out of Campers
Place a bar or two of Irish Spring soap in your trailer. Critters absolutely hate the strong smell of the soap, and will stay far away from it. You can also leave the bars of soap in your garage, basement, or anywhere else you suspect pests are hiding…
Place dryer sheets in areas that you suspect critters to enter or hide. Be sure to change the dryer sheets every few weeks to keep the scent strong enough to keep them away…
Soak cotton balls with peppermint oil and place them in suspected areas…
Moth balls are also a good idea. I personally do not prefer to use this, but others do not mind the smell…
Here are some other ways to keep the mice away…
Steel Wool – covering holes that mice can get through, they don’t like the metal.
Aluminum Foil – blocking passages.
Keeping areas clean and tidy will really help giving critters no areas to hide in. Also making sure all food is put away and sealed.
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209 comments on “How to keep Mice out of Campers”
We tried putting Irish Spring soap bars in our RV and the darn mice ate the soap.
I put eucalyptus oil on makeup pads in all my
Kitchen drawers and at areas mice have left evidence of being. Does a good job at keeping them away.
Hate to bust your bubble but New York mice love to eat Irish spring soap. Also drier sheets don’t work.
It has been extra dry. Everyone is having trouble with rats & mice. I found a large hole in my closet. When trying to patch it I found another. Then in another room. I had 2 men say they worked on a oil rig & had trouble. They put out Alka Selzer!!! They eat it & can’t burp it up. They go outside to get water & it blows them up. I also placed Honey Jiffy mix at tracks them to eat & mix with baking soda to cause them to blow up when going after water…it does the same! I have traps to trap & kill + large sticky traps! I can’t stand rats!!!
Thank you so much for all your suggestions I will try all I live in the desert in a trailer so I appreciate any help I can get
Must be something besides mice. I use the soap. I shred some and sprinkle it around the outside of my home. I cut bars into halves or quarters and put along the walls from doors and windows. Then under the sink and known areas like around my stove. My property backs up to fields with different animals and when I first moved here had big issues. A few years ago I started the soap and saw a huge decrease in activity. It’s like they came in and left running for their lives. I also have 2 cats now. That helps once they get in…I just don’t want them in at all.
Moth Balls also keeps snakes away. It burns their skin.
I tried the soap hack and first they were chewed on and a day or so later the whole thing was GONE!!!! Yes it was the brand “Irish Spring” as I was directed. I guess they like the smell better than I do.
We tried everything, and we still got them. I think it’s location (we were by a field), and if there are any access points. They destroyed our canvas and beds. Thankfully we already had a canvas on order. We’re making triple sure we don’t miss any openings.
Some of the chemicals in mothballs can cause reversible health effects that include headaches, nausea, eye and nose irritation and coughing. Exposure to naphthalene can cause more serious effects, including hemolytic anemia. Naphthalene is also a possible carcinogen. We did NOT use to think mothballs were dangerous but now that we do PLEASE don’t reccommend them. Thanks.
Find the hole they are coming in if possible and use Duct tape and put 1 or 2 Mothballs on it and poke them in hole so the smell is not in camper .Mice hate the smell of mothballs this has worked for us and put small long piece of tape on mothballs to keep them from falling off but not enough that it covers them up and rats and mice can’t smell.We have even put them in our Garage but you can smell them for about a month but worth not having RATS
I tried the soap. You can see where the mice either chewed it or clawed it up.
Putting cocoa cola in a lid, kills mice. They get bloated and can’t burp they go looking for air outside and die outside. NO tiny corpse to deal with.
The mice at my place love Irish Spring. They eat it.
Maybe they die later after they’ve eaten it and it’s foaming in their insides!!!
I always like the many ideas people have, so I’ll be trying those dryer sheets. Another way to keep mice away is go to a pet store and ask for some shredded skin from snakes. The will stay away bcuz mice know this is 1 predator that moves like them. There’s no escape from snakes. This worked great when I had an attic apt. Mice have a flexible bone skeleton, they can come in holes the size of a quarter if determined.
My husband had a small camper in the woods, found a 4 foot long snakeskin, still had mice in his camper!
One drop of chocolate syrup upon the mouse trap and IF the mouse is lucky it will get the treat. Most of the time the mice caught this way only managed to get their little mouth around the trip lever – and that was that.
I personally have used cotton balls and peppermint oil as a deterrent for mice. I use a half pint canning jar, poke holes in the lid and put 3-4 cotton balls in the jar. Then put 3 drops of essential peppermint oil on each cotton ball. This is safe for pets as long as you only use 3 drops per cotton ball. Then place the jars around the house or camper where you have seen mice or their droppings. I have found that this does work.
What I found works pretty well is peppermint and also scented cinnamon pine cones. I am now growing peppermint and harvesting it in the fall, crushing it up and making little sachets to spread around the camper inside. I put moth ball outside under the camper.
I tried Irish Spring soap and the mice made a banquet out of it and brought their friends to join in the feast!!!
Irish Spring soap and dryer sheets DO NO WORK! We quartered bars of the soap and placed them through out our 30ft camper that is parked at a camp grounds, along with dryer sheets. The MICE actually SAT ON THE DRYER SHEETS AND NIBBLED ON THE SOAP QUARTERS!!
Have you ever tried the peppermint oil
Peppermint oil has worked very well for keeping the mice away. I bought a bottle at Co-Op and have not been disappointed. No signs of mice at all since using the spray which I only spray once every week or two (just one quick little spray) under the kitchen sink where they were managing to come in even after sealing up a tiny little opening they had made. It smells wonderful too!
Irish spring soap does by no means repel mice in RV’s. I have not had to much problems using dryer sheets. After reading about mice hating the strong smell from Irish spring soap thought we’d try it leaving a good smelling RV come spring. Everywhere (numerous places) where the soap was there was mouse droppings. There were even signs of them gnawing on the soap. I would never try or recommend using Irish Spring soap to repel and keep mice away.
I tried dryer sheets, irish spring and steel wool. Irish spring may get nibbled on but do you know where the dead mouse is if it stinks they don’t like it they won’t come as often steel wool putting holes they don’t like that either nothing kills mice very well but Irish spring and dryer sheets certainly help repel
Irish spring soap Doesn’t work.Laundry room soap bar with teeth Mark’s in it.They ate it.Live traps check daily works best!
Same here! They ate the peppermint tea bags also along with most of the green poison blocks… peanut butter and baking soda they eat it too I haven’t noticed any reduction in numbers. The bucket trap seems highly effective, hope it keeps up.