Pest Preparedness and Winter Storage

You know someone who has gone through this:

Enthusiastically, they opened up the door to their trailer, which had been in storage for the winter. They slowly entered the trailer and saw the horror – tiny little black “pebbles” scattered throughout the trailer.

A mouse or, most likely, mice called their trailer home throughout the winter.

No matter how hospitable you are, a mouse is a menace. They are party-poopers. They are a downer to the beginning of camping season.

What a mess!

Well, luckily (I’m knocking on wood right now), we have yet to experience winter residents in our trailer.

So, what do we do to keep them out of our trailer?

Well, we have a simple routine that has worked well for us:

• Remove all food.
• Clean all surfaces.
• Remove linens.
• Buy dryer sheets, lots and lots of dryer sheets.
• Put dryer sheets EVERYWHERE in your trailer – every single nook and cranny.
• Have the trailer stored in a lot with lots of other trailers – hopefully the mice go and pick someone else’s trailer.

Typically, I buy 1 gigantic box of the smelliest dryer sheets that I can find. The mice do not appear to be brand loyal, so I go with whatever is on sale at the time.

I literally put the dryer sheets everywhere. Under mattresses, on mattresses, in every single cupboard, on every single shelf, under cushions, on tables, outside storage compartments…you get the idea.

I am sure the people who winterize our trailer for us think that it’s overkill, but I swear by my methodology.

This year we opened up the trailer right after Easter weekend. I believe, the kids had more fun hunting down dryer sheets than they did chocolates. Here was what they gathered:

You can see that I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that I used lots of dryer sheets!

An added bonus to the dryer sheets is the fresh laundry scent in our trailer when we open it up.

How to you keep the mice away?

Happy Camping!

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