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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214 comments on “How to keep Mice out of Campers”
I found a little mouse dropping behind the drawers in my bedroom. I was wondering if that meant they were around. I bought the RV used a little less than a year ago.
  My favorite hack for dryer sheets came from a car dealer in town. One of their clients had several costly repairs from mice eating the new wire coverings that were delicious, environmentally improved material.Â
  Once they tucked Bounce dryer sheets in the car that weren’t exposed to heat, the problem was solved.
  So, inside the car and engine work great.Â
Do you have a brand preference? Â He said Bounce.
Love all  Your ideas. And now Irish Spring! Cool.Â
   Thanks, VickieÂ
I love the camper. It is SOOO cute
Joyce
I lived in a 3rd floor apartment, which was actually the 4th story because the parking garage was the ground floor, and I got an infestation of ants one Spring. I had used the borax and sugar mixture in my previous home with great success. But it didn’t seem to be working as well. (It takes patience as it doesn’t repel ants but is taken back to the colony and eventually kills the colony. I could only imagine the size of the ant colony under the apartment building as compared to the one located under the single story house I had had the success with borax/sugar.) I researched and read about cinnamon. The ants seemed to be coming from behind the stove. I had recently pulled the stove out and cleaned so I made a visual check for any food that may have fallen so I knew I wasn’t putting out a welcome mat. In fact other than the ant trail and the scouts that explored the places I was finding them was in my cereal box, my honey jar, and molasses bottle. I was so frustrated that when I read about the cinnamon I grabbed the big jar I had purchased from the dollar store and started shaking cinnamon behind my stove. I didn’t even bother pulling the stove out. I didn’t care where it went, the floor, the plug, everything got covered with cinnamon. I then got my homemade vinegar based cleaning spray and cleaned everywhere they were trailing. So I would know if I had any new ones. I did not see another ant ever! I left that same cinnamon behind my stove figuring it was not emitting anything poisonous to me or my food nor was it sticky or smelly. I moved 18 months later and there were still no ants. I don’t have children or pets but would not hesitate to use cinnamon if I did. As for mice I had an infestation many years ago that got so bad they wouldn’t even run if I walked into the kitchen. It was me or them and had no qualms about using poison. I put D-con mouse poison under my sink and in the back of the cabinet they seemed to like. Poof! In no time at all! No mice, no carcasses, no odors coming from the walls. We had set traps and I’ll never do that again. Fast kill? Hearing the trap snap and the mouse squealing is neither fast nor humane. Mice carry disease and/or fleas that carry disease. I would never allow my children to be exposed to the diseases rodents can carry to tiptoe around using live traps so I can take them out and release them to then become someone else’s problem. I don’t know where others put out poison but my children never went under my sink nor has a child or pet crawled up into a cabinet and then bypassed everything to get to any poison. The anticoagulant I understand the fear of another animal eating the mouse who had eaten the anticoagulant. But I can’t see a problem there either. First the bait is laced with it. And one mouse doesn’t eat that much at one feeding. We see the damage of their gnawing and gathering nesting material. But if they’ve eaten our food it is just a small amount. A teaspoon of grain? Any animal that may come around and eat that mouse is a lot bigger and the amount in the mouse just doesn’t seem to be enough to harm a larger animal. If you read about the diseases mice can bring into your home you might be looking at safe places to set out poisons. But prevention is best and steel wool is cheap and safe. But in your research into mice you will learn they can get through a 1/4″ space. And scent repellents, dryer sheets, mint, soap, etc. Are only deterrents. If you put any in an area that is warm and dry (warm by mouse standards not yours) and is a source of food and water or close to a source, there will be a couple of mice who will tolerate the odor and move right in. But if you agree or disagree before you do anything do your research. Read about the life cycles, habits, abilities (squeezing through 1/4″!), everything about mice. Read Wikipedia and 2 or 3 others. There are pest control companies and university extensions that have excellent articles online. 3 or 4 are needed but anymore is usually repetitive. And if you want to reply and tell me how wrong I am I won’t be reading it. Besides I will not convince you and you will not convince me. I am 70 and very healthy and besides my friends and I drank water from the garden hose all summer every summer for probably 6 or 7 summers.
Currently, baseball lids are even more popular than actually for both men and women of all ages. They are obtainable because fitted caps found in regular hat sizes so when changeable caps with a snapback or a good slide closure. Here are some points that you can conduct to some sort of fitted natural cotton cap in addition to an flexible cotton cap to adjust to them, shape them, and even use them.
Thank you for the great info, I will try the soap when I store the lawn mower s for winter.
Our mice ate the Irish Spring Soap. They used the dryer sheets when they did their laundry. We had absolutely NO food in the trailer & they still made themselves at home. Tried the tire rings to block their way in but they still came in. I have had good luck so far using some battery operated ultrasonic repellers in combo with “Vehicle Protection Rodent Defense” spray on our mower engines in the barn but don’t want to spray that in the trailer. So I am using just the ultrasonic repellers in the trailer. Time will tell.
Get a five gallon bucket. Run a wire sraight across it at the top. Then get a empty roll of toilet paper. In the empty roll of toilet paper roll in the middle put a little peanut butter. Then run the wire through the toilet paper roll and then make sure the wire is good and hooked on the both sides. Then put about 6 in of water in the bucket. The mice will climb up to get the peanut butter and when they do the toilet paper roll will turn and they will go into the water and die.
That’s good to know that the mice don’t like metal. I have a bunch of leftover wire mesh from another project and I would imagine it would do the same thing as steel wool. I’ll have to give it a try and see if it is as effective at keeping mice out.
Stabilized chlorine pucks for the pool. I store a container of stabilized chlorine pucks for the swimming pool in our garden shed. When they are there, the mice mysteriously vanished. I assume they don’t like the smell. I would NOT use for car or in house but for outdoor storage shed they work great. Very pungent smell.