Rodent???

[ipeltier]

We recently put our 5th wheel in storage on a farm field in southern British Columbia. The owner warned us that mice were a problem, so we set out four trays of blue poison mouse pellets. A week later, we returned to find two of the trays completely empty, and a stash of the pellets in a corner of a pantry basket, and a dozen pellets in the underbelly underneath the upstairs bedroom. We inspected the trailer thoroughly, found a dozen mouse turds, and a small hole on the kitchen slide which we plugged with steel wool. We're now living in the trailer, and haven't found any dead rodents, so I assume it (they) escaped through the slide hole before we plugged. Would this have been a mouse? A rat? Do mice transport food to a hiding spot?

[Tvov]

Many times the mouse poison causes the mice to be thirsty, and they leave the area (or camper) to find water and hopefully die out there somewhere. So if you don't have dead mouse smell in your camper than that is what happened. Dcon and Tomcat poison pellets are very weak and sometimes don't work. Try Ramik (green packaging), and especially One Bite (yellow packaging) works well for me.

Avoid putting the bait in the camper - it will draw the rodents into the camper to get the bait. Use the outdoor bait containers (designed to prevent other animals from eating the bait). I put those next to the jack and wheels, where rodents can crawl up into the camper.

Rodent control is hard, and never ending. Try variations of all the advice you read about here. Eventually you find some combination that will work for you.

[schlep1967]

Used the blue pellets in my garage once. They emptied the tray in one night. The next week we grabbed our bowling ball bags and headed to the alley for our weekly league night. It was quite comical when I pulled the bowling ball out and had blue pellets all over the floor.

I now use snap traps.

A very important part of storing a camper is getting every bit of food out of the camper. With no food or water they may visit but most likely will not set up camp. And it never hurts to set a trap right inside the door where it is easily checked.

[Scottiemom]

We prefer to trap as well for the occasional rodent that gets in. Also, I don't like poison because of it killing owls and other wildlife that will feed on the poisoned mice.

I don't want to take the chance that a rodent will crawl into a space I can't reach and die.

[blofgren]

Rats have considerably larger droppings and WAY more urine than mice. So if the droppings are quite small, it was probably mice.

I would clean everything very well and set some good old fashioned traps to get any that may still be in there. I made the mistake of leaving poison bait out in one of my trailers years ago and a rat ended up dying somewhere in a furnace duct. The smell was absolutely horrible and we never could get rid of it. From that point on, I concentrate on keeping rodents out and trapping any that may get in.

Good luck and let us know how you make out.