Rats!
We have recently moved to a new house with lots of trees and brush and love it. Being that we've been spending a lot of our weekends working around the house, we haven't been camping much for the last few months.
We are planning on going out for the long weekend coming up, so went inside to look things over and clean things out... there was no power to the slides, but the lights worked. Went to the battery compartment, and found a nest, lots of rat droppings, and a rat. Chased the rat out with a water hose, and started putting moth balls in the compartment. Our malamute has since been chasing rats in the bushes. At night, we've been putting rat traps and have gotten three so far, but there is damage to some of the wiring in the battery compartment... yesterday, our malamute while out playing, started hanging around the pin of the fiver, getting up on his hind legs to have a look inside... as I got closer, I could hear something like a baby bird chirping, but there was no bird nest in the pin. As I looked closer, I could tell it was coming from the inside of the fiver portion next to the pin, and also noticed some more wiring chewed through.
I was prepared to clean up and repair the battery compartment wiring myself, but is this other wiring (coming from the umbilical cord and through a small control box of some sort attached to the pin) something I can fix myself? Is the compartment over the pin easy to get to? I would need to remove some of the paneling to get the other stupid nest and any rats out of there.
I have armed the 5er with moth balls around all contact points to the ground, inside the battery compartment, am continuing to use mouse traps, and will put the expanding foam stuff to cover the openings. Is there anything else we can do to keep this from happening again?
So far, it does not appear they have gotten to the inside of the trailer itself.
My concern also is that if they chewed through the brake wiring, and I can't fix it myself, I will not be able to pull it safely to an RV dealer to fix.
Thanks!
We are planning on going out for the long weekend coming up, so went inside to look things over and clean things out... there was no power to the slides, but the lights worked. Went to the battery compartment, and found a nest, lots of rat droppings, and a rat. Chased the rat out with a water hose, and started putting moth balls in the compartment. Our malamute has since been chasing rats in the bushes. At night, we've been putting rat traps and have gotten three so far, but there is damage to some of the wiring in the battery compartment... yesterday, our malamute while out playing, started hanging around the pin of the fiver, getting up on his hind legs to have a look inside... as I got closer, I could hear something like a baby bird chirping, but there was no bird nest in the pin. As I looked closer, I could tell it was coming from the inside of the fiver portion next to the pin, and also noticed some more wiring chewed through.
I was prepared to clean up and repair the battery compartment wiring myself, but is this other wiring (coming from the umbilical cord and through a small control box of some sort attached to the pin) something I can fix myself? Is the compartment over the pin easy to get to? I would need to remove some of the paneling to get the other stupid nest and any rats out of there.
I have armed the 5er with moth balls around all contact points to the ground, inside the battery compartment, am continuing to use mouse traps, and will put the expanding foam stuff to cover the openings. Is there anything else we can do to keep this from happening again?
So far, it does not appear they have gotten to the inside of the trailer itself.
My concern also is that if they chewed through the brake wiring, and I can't fix it myself, I will not be able to pull it safely to an RV dealer to fix.
Thanks!
