Ants and similar pests in any RV.

[KKELLER14K]

I can't stress enough that keeping your floors clean of any kind of food matter is imperative. My mother came from Arizona to my place here in the NW. We have seen all time record breaking temps here but the pests are not phased. We have her parked in my RV spot on the side of my house. Long story long...she created an ant explosion in the RV. Why? Her dog. Not just a few ants but she had to bail out. In one day they were everywhere. She is a newbie, and fresh on the road not knowing to take precautions and never thought this kind of thing would happen. I went to work trying to not only find where the intrusion was coming from...but I knew there had to be a source of available food that the pests are attracted to. Three major mistakes here...feeding the dog inside the RV #1. After looking closer, I found little pieces of dog food had made its way to the floor and wall perimeter #2. Last but not least, she had the dogs dry food under the table but did not close the bag. I found it, there was the main source! Ants started coming out of the dog food bag....I sealed it as quick as I could...LOL! I hope this might be a lesson. I figure 3 to 4 days of ant traps...carting the poison bait back to the source. I will not spray anything in a close quarter living space let alone concerned about the dog... there you have it! Any similar experience?

[mr_andyj]

parking in the grass is a nightmare. This always attraced ants to mine, no matter how clean. They were not scavenging for food. Sometimes they are attracted to the DC electricity.
The biggest problem I had was the ants would crawl into the engine relay switches, and pack in as many of their friends as could fit, they would then corrode the relay with their watery dead bodies or they would get stuck between the contacts and render the relay useless. I was able to clean some, but replacing them at $10-20 each became too much, so I moved to a pay lot and saved money on relays.
This is just one ant story.
Stay off the grass or use a lot of anti-ant stuff around the tires.

[run100]

From what I've heard, a ring of grease on the power cord prevents ants from making their way to the camper too. If it works like it did with my jacks, it's a quick and inexpensive solution.

[mellow]

I have had the issue with ants following up the power cord, it is direct access to get into the camper, I now spray the power cord with ant repellent.

[mbloof]

The little 'sugar ants' in my driveway love climbing the extension cord I use when parked there and plugged into shore power.

There is no food in my camper to attract them.

- Ortho 'ant dust' works ok until it rains and washes away. It takes a while for the ants to carry it back to their nest.

- I've often thought about setting up a bucket of water where the extension cord would dangle from the camper and drop right into the center of a bucket filled with water in hopes of blocking them from invading my camper. I'm thinking a standard 5gal pail would do it.

- I almost never put the jack stands down so their only two paths are the extension cord and climbing up a tire and navigating the truck assembly to get in.


- Mark0.

[silversand]

Run100 wrote: I put a small ring of grease around each jack, about an inch up from the ground, and that stopped the ants in their tracks. As I had read somewhere, the ants will not cross over grease - Vaseline works too.

That's interesting. have to try it.

I've been experimenting with back-folded duct tape (the real brand; not Dollar store stuff). And ants manage to struggle over the adhesive. Even 4 inches of adhesive.

Our rig is parked in the driveway, but partially under tree canopy. The ants often drop out of the trees and land on the camper roof. Not necessarily climbing jack legs and power cables....

[run100]

After a camping trip in the forest, had the camper parked at home with the jacks down. Don't recall if it was still on the truck, but did have the slide extended. My daughter alerted me to an ant trail on the driveway. I wasn't very interested until we followed the trail to the camper! How dare they!!!

The trail went up the curbside jack, onto the sidewall and all the way up to the roof. I climbed the ladder and found they were after tree sap on the slide topper that must have dripped from a tree during our camping trip. How in the heck do those ants discover tree sap way up on the roof?

After washing the slide topper and camper, I put a small ring of grease around each jack, about an inch up from the ground, and that stopped the ants in their tracks. As I had read somewhere, the ants will not cross over grease - Vaseline works too.

Yes, Terro is also awesome. Just be patient and let it do it's thing over a couple day span. Now, if I could just get this year's cricket invasion under control!

[Mel_Stuplich]

http://www.tsusinvasives.org/home/database/nylanderia-fulva

[YC_1]

I keep a small bottle of Bifen in a spray jug. Not spraying it around food or pet areas but can get into lower cabinet bottoms and outside of the rv..

It last a long time and hammers just about anything that crawls or flys.

Fire ants don't stand a change.

[Lwiddis]

Campfire ash works well at no cost. “The little $&!?##s?” Please! No foul language! lol

[BobsYourUncle]

I had something similar, you are not alone! :E

Using my TT for a portable hotel working out of town, I was set up on the grass at a customers property in Powell River BC for about a week and a half.

A few days in the ants invaded me. Took me a few days to figure out they were coming in via my shore power cable.
And I am very fussy about cleaning up all evidence of food too. They went after my rubbermaid garbage container under the sink.

I heavily dusted the wheels and shore power cable area with Comet. They don't like powder on their feet. I sprayed and much more.

I thought I had got them, but over the next 2 years they got worse and worse. They multiplied and took over.

I finally figured it out. They got into my roof via the bathroom Fantastic Fan and built a nest in there. After 2 years of trying everything I could think of I was ready to set fire to it! There was zero food or water source when the TT was stored but they still thrived.

Those useless little round tin bait things do not work. I had them everywhere.

The final solution that eradicated them was liquid Terro. The little $&!?##!'s had a steady run up the wall by the tub and into the ceiling. I put out 2 water bottle lids with a few drops of the Terro in them. One was on the edge of the tub. They loved that stuff. I refilled it multiple times over the course of a week or so.

The most difficult thing was just letting them be, and resisting the urge to attack them with spray. They started coming out of the roof vent and crawling on the ceiling. They acted like they were drunk. Wobbling around, unable to hold on, and they would fall off and die.

2 blinkin years of fighting them! I used a small shop vac to clean up hundreds of them every day for 4-5 days before their numbers dwindled down to nothing.

So yeah, I second the thought, keep your RV clean of food sources!

[Kayteg1]

I was sealing lot of factory gaps in my campers, but it took parting out camper to find huge holes around plumbing hidden above the tanks, meaning impossible to access without taking camper apart.
When we stayed in New Orleans, we had invasion of caroches and had to move to different part of campground to solve it.
We do have ants coming to our house and poison capsules seem to work best, while protecting dogs from eating the poison.