How To Keep Rodents Out of Your RV

Have you ever woken to a scuffling sound interrupting a restful night of RV sleep? While it’s most likely to occur while campers are in winter storage, mice and other rodents can enter your RV at any time. When they do, they can chew through almost anything, causing damage to wiring, camping gear, and other precious cargo. So, it’s useful for all RVers to learn how to keep rodents out of your RV. 

Top 3 Tips for Keeping Rodents Out of Your RV

To explain this simple but incredibly important topic, we’ll start with our top three tips for keeping rodents out of your RV. We’ll then suggest habits you can practice during the camping season and specific tips to keep mice out of your RV during winter storage.

1: Don’t Let Crumbs Lie

If you drop it, pick it up and throw it away. It’s simple, but food scents are the #1 attractant for mice, rodents, and other critters. Ensuring your family doesn’t leave behind a mess after meals, both inside your RV and at the picnic table outside, is the best way to reduce rodent’s interest in your camper. If you don’t already have one, consider investing in an RV vacuum to aid your cleaning efforts.

2: Use Sealed Storage Containers

When temperatures drop, mice and rodents seek shelter and look to insulate that shelter. They can collect insulation like the padding in camping chairs or, from personal experience, the lining of a ski boot. They then use it to make a nest, a common occurrence if they’ve infiltrated your RV during winter storage. 

To keep rodents from turning your belongings into insulation, keep as much cargo in sealed storage containers as possible. I’m a huge fan of 7-gallon heavy-duty lidded totes, but there are many options that fit the different storage areas inside and underneath your RV. 

3: Inspect and Seal the Underbelly

Look for holes or openings where rodents may gain entry. These can exist where plumbing or other components enter the RV’s body. Rodents can squeeze through surprisingly small holes, so take the time to seal up any holes before storing your RV for the winter. As an aside, an RV with a fully enclosed underbelly will generally include fewer potential entry points for mice and rodents.

Technician Tip: Consult your RV manufacturer for recommendations to safely seal the underbelly without voiding any factory or dealership warranties.

How To Keep Mice Out of Your RV During Camping Season

Keeping mice out of your camper is about good habits. You must reduce your RV’s attractiveness to hungry animals—or at least make it less attractive than the campers next to you. To do this, follow these three golden rules: 

• Keep It Clean
• Keep It Closed
• Keep It Up

Let’s explain…

Keep It Clean

Most of us go camping to get out of our normal routines—to go on vacation. Cleaning your RV isn’t a top priority when you’re focused on relaxing. But the more we allow food to lie around, inside and out, the more we attract rodents and other critters. To keep them away, simply take a few minutes at the end of each day to clean up. 

Having dedicated places to throw away food and other trash can help. You likely have a trash can (or two) inside your RV, but do you have one outside? When camping, we often eat and consume our preferred camping beverages outside. 

A collapsible trash can outside is a smart, tidy way to collect trash. Or, simply keep an extra roll of trash bags handy in an underneath storage compartment. Then, make the time at the end of each day to clean up and take the trash to the dumpster.

Keep It Closed

One of the major benefits of RV camping is having a secure, weather-protected space to stay comfortable. But at its core, most people were attracted to this lifestyle to spend more time outdoors. Whether it’s national parks, camping near urban environments, or finding far-flung boondocking spots, most people RV to explore new natural landscapes.

But when it comes to mice and other rodents, we want to keep the outdoors…out of our doors. The best way to do that is to keep our doors and windows closed. That means door and window screens when you open things up for ventilation, baggage doors once you’ve unloaded camping gear, and refrigerators or coolers once you have the food and beverages you need.

When doors are left open, critters can get in. It’s as simple as that. While most RVers won’t leave their entry door open for any extended period, you may not practice the same habit with underneath compartment doors. Those doors, in many cases, are the most likely entry point for rodents. 

Keep It Organized

Do you often return from camping trips late on Sunday, with an early morning looming for work the next day? It’s all too easy to skip the post-trip checks we should do when we return home. But these checks allow us to catch rodents if they have entered during our trip. The above habits will help you keep mice out of your RV, but it’s always smart to check at the end of each trip. 

The best way to do this is to unpack and reorganize after each trip. It doesn’t have to be the same day you return; go through your camping gear, cleaning and organizing as you go. This process can accomplish multiple goals. 

Most campers don’t thoroughly clean everything at the end of a trip. Goal #1 is to clean anything that was put away dirty so it’s ready for your next trip. It’s also unlikely that everything was put back in its place. Goal #2 is reorganizing once your gear is clean and dry. 

As you accomplish these two goals, you’ll naturally move things around and inspect your storage areas, focusing especially on underneath storage compartments. In this process, you’ll check for unwanted rodents or mice.

How To Keep Mice Out of Your RV During Winter Storage

Those tips reduce the chances of encountering mice in your RV during the camping season. But when you won’t be in and out regularly, you must take extra steps to protect your investment. A lot goes into proper winter RV storage, but these three golden rules can help you keep rodents from making your RV their winter home.

• Clean It
• Protect It
• Cover It

Here’s what we mean…

Clean It

Begin your RV winter storage preparations with a deep clean, focusing on your refrigerator, pantry, and any other areas where you store food in your RV. Other examples include overhead storage or coolers in an underneath storage compartment. 

Your goal is to remove all crumbs, food scraps, and odors. Use an RV-safe cleaning solution to wipe pantry shelves and clean the interior of your refrigerator, ensuring no food or odors linger once your fridge is turned off and propped open during the winter. 

Protect It

As a backup to your cleaning efforts, you can strategically place rodent traps or repellants throughout your RV. There are numerous products for this: 

• Scented discs and balls repel mice by giving off a naturally deterrent fragrance.
• Repellant automotive tape keeps mice from chewing sensitive electronics.
• Bucket-style traps humanely capture mice if they do enter your RV.

You can apply one or multiple rodent repellants to keep mice out of your RV during winter storage. Common locations to place them include underneath compartments, under the kitchen counter, and below the bathroom sink. You can also place them in the engine compartment of a motorhome.

Cover It

Using an RV cover makes it more difficult for mice and other rodents to enter your RV. We commonly think about rodents entering campers from the ground, but squirrels and other tree-dwelling rodents can easily access your RV from above if it’s stored outside near any tall foliage. Tire covers can also make it harder for rodents to climb RV tires to gain entry to the underbelly. 

Rodents aren’t the only thing you should protect your RV from. Here are a few more help resources to help you keep your RV damage-free and retain its potential resale value:

• Why Should You Cover Your RV?
• Seasonal, Annual, & Pre-Tri RV Maintenance
• How To Sanitize an RV Fresh Water Tank

Do you have other suggestions to help RVers keep mice out of their RV? Let us know in the comments below!