We were almost in bed, when we heard it. The all too familiar tapping, the dreaded sound that signaled an intruder. The sound that’s kept me awake some nights...an incessant metal on metal sound that means a mouse is in our have-a-heart trap, trying to escape. But of course, he can’t, and that’s the goal - trap him alive so we can release him somewhere far away from our RV to live out his days in the wild, like nature intends. But in the middle of the night, who wants to get the trap, drive down the road a few miles and open the trap, then wait for him to run off into the night (often they cower long minutes afraid to leave the four walls of his cell for an open field guarded by a giant)? So typically this sound keeps me awake. On this particular night, both Terry and I drove down the road and he freed the mouse while I watched. Usually this is Terry’s job, even Sundance’s when it happened in our Vermont house. I love wildlife but I don’t like mice. I like them enough to let them live, and I certainly don’t want to use traps that break their necks or poison them, thus the have-a-heart. But lately, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to foil mice from getting into the storage bins under the RV, and trapping and releasing them. We’ve been in three separate locations in the last few weeks, and in each one we’ve had mice intrude on our space! |
In one location (near Wolf Creek Pass in the Rio Grande National Forest), I swear we captured a whole extended family with dad and little Jimmy one night, Uncle Fester the same day, and sister Susie the next day. In another location (Creede, CO camping in the Rio Grande National Forest), we captured four in one night! That was the evening I heard them close by while watching TV. They weren’t just underneath the RV in a storage bin. They were under the sink near the trash can scraping or scratching while we were watching a movie. Earlier in the day, I happened to notice a plastic bag had fallen behind one of the drawers, and asked Terry for help retrieving it. The stack of three drawers made it hard to reach since the drawer couldn’t be removed. But it was in a place right beside a removable panel which houses our carbon monoxide alarm that oddly enough sounded the alarm the day before (it is old and needed to be replaced). When Terry couldn’t take the drawer out and had to open the co2 monoxide panel to reach the bag he found nesting material! Well that got our attention. |
Over the last five years of RV travel, we’ve discovered quite a few mice in the trap. And finally after one spell of nightly captures, we decided we must be attracting them by putting bait in the trap. So we stopped that, and the incidences dropped. When we started out in June this year, we didn’t have any food in the trap, and Terry sprayed the rodent deterrent on the undercarriage. I swear that spray must attract some mice (the dull witted pencil eraser eaters) since it happened twice that we found mice, AFTER spraying this pungent concoction which contains cayenne pepper. We’ve also tried any number of packets of repellent that generally last 30-90 days, and most recently we read online that other RVers suggest soaking cotton balls with the peppermint oil (which by the way, is hard to find so I’ve been using peppermint extract from the baking aisle of grocery stores but a small bottle doesn’t go very far). But we’ve seen evidence that some mice bite the repel packets, so perhaps mint is not a favorite of all mice but perhaps the southerners are drawn to it?? My thinking is also that mice are drawn to the smell of urine or feces of other mice, so they follow the trail to our trap. But along with this most recent attack on their intrusion when we foamed, added another trap, dipped the cotton balls and added the packets, we also took everything out of the storage bins looking for evidence. So fingers crossed that this does the trick! Eventually I’ll write a children’s story about this experience and the mice family that thought they had found a new home. Only to be evicted after being captured and left overnight to imagine their torture. Next morning at first light, they were carried to a car in their tiny cage huddled together and watched over by a fierce beast called Rocket. Until their cage was set down in a field where one by one they hopped to safety. Here they had to start a new life, but at least they had each other. All these years of releasing these poor, scared creatures I’ve often wondered if we really do have a heart. It must be difficult for a lone mouse or even a family to be dropped into a new neighborhood and have to start all over. But we try to give them an advantage by at least dropping them in the same place if we catch mice over subsequent nights. It’s my hope they can reunite and help each other set up housekeeping- miles away from my house, of course! |
Not my best videography, but good for a chuckle. Another video, (not shown below) shows Terry trying to get the mouse to leave his temporary home. https://youtu.be/XPJbP1gZ_38
If you have any suggestions on how to repel mice in an RV please share, and well give it a try!