What is best way to seal against rodents?

[belfert]

This morning I opened my luggage bays for the first time in months.  I heard a rodent of some sort scurrying around inside the bays.  I noticed I had left a container of hot cocoa powder in the bay and they were dining on that.  I didn't see any obvious damage besides the cocoa container.

What is the best way to seal any openings like around my dump pipe?  I understand mice and other rodents can chew through caulk or foam if they really want in.

Next year I need to check the luggage bays for food in addition to checking the interior.

[buswarrior]

No different than attempts to keep them out at a cottage or shack in the woods....

After a massive investment in time, materials and your blood, success will be slim to none.

You can slow them down by closing off the obviously bigger entrances, but if a mouse can get a nose in a hole, the rest of him will squeeze through. The coach has so many little places up under the driver, up in the engine room, to enter the utilities, around the corner of a door seal, etc, it will be close to impossible to get all of them, and some require movement of controls, so they can't be easily sealed.

Better defence is, as you have noted, don't leave anything in the coach to attract them or reward them for visiting. Make a tray out of an old cereal box, leaving raised edges, to put some poison on to pick off the explorers. You will be able to tell if you have had visitors, as the poison will be disturbed, and the cereal box will contain the spillage/tracking, speeding up the safe cleaning before using the coach.

Pretty much the same discipline about food and spilled things will help against ants finding your coach a happy home too.

No food, few visitors?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Stan]

Best material for plugging holes is fine steel wool. It also keeps out the bigger insects.  Other solution is a ball bearing mouse trap (big old tomcat).

[Dallas]

Brian,

Even though I've been told by some pest exterminators that it doesn't work, here's one of my favorite methods... used by my dad in the milking sheds and by a bunch of other farmers and ranchers I worked for over the years of my youth.

Mix 1 Lb. Plaster of Paris with 1 Lb. Corn Meal. Place in a bowl, or box with raised edges in a convenient spot for your favorite rodent to dine.
within a couple of feet, place a bowl of water that the aforementioned rodent can access. (one of those water bowls that uses and old pop bottle screwed in to keep full would be great.

when the critter eats the PoP/cornmeal mix, it will be dry and he/she will become thirsty. After drinking the water, the PoP starts working and either heats up or solidifies, the unwanted visitor gets a tummy ache and dies.

It was my job to go out and collect the rodent remains every morning at a couple of places I worked.

The up side to this, it doesn't entice pets as most of them are meat eaters and won't touch corn meal. Don't let your rabbit or pet squirrel near it though unless you want to save parts of them for posterity.

Good Luck!

Dallas

[JackConrad]

Barn Cats.  We have 3 ourdoor cats that live in and around our shop. We feed them, but they still hunt. Only rats or mice we have seen is the occasional "present" they leave for us.  Jack

[belfert]

I would prefer not to poison them, but rather at least try to keep them out.  With poison they can die and start to stink until the body dries out.

I'm hoping that keeping food out of the bays will help a lot for future winters.  I didn't see any evidence of rodents last winter, but the bus was at an outdoor storage lot and I removed anything not bolted down from the bays.  They were completely empty.

[uncle ned]

after several springs of trying to get rid of the rodents, I was told to use dryer sheets placed all around the bus.  after that no more rats and the bus smells good also. 

Now how do i get rid of very small ants.

uncle ned

[roadrunnertex]

My bus barn has 4 full time kitties who keep the little furry critters away.
The best part about having kitties they are always around when you are working on a project and they are good overseer's to make sure you do the job right!
jlv

[H3Jim]

I've been poisoning them, and they always go outside to die. 
I've never had smell or bodies in the coach.  Of course when i trap them, I find bodies, but that requires too many changes of bait.

I have had them move massive amounts of Dcon to other areas though. some examples are:

from the storage area under the driver to on top of my pillow under the sheets - pretty irritating.
Nuts from my pantry to the muffler of my wood chipper parked nearby - and every possible storage area for 30 feet
At first when I kept putting poison in the storage area under the driver, and it kept disappearing in great quantities, i thought good they are eating it all, die rodent die.  Then one month looked in a nearby storage shed in a box on top of a file cabinet and voila, 3 months worth of bait!
but Decon does work well, and consistently.  Traps too.

[HB of CJ]

Yep, same answer.  A biological deterent, in this case, a big skinny (and hungry) cat works the best.

[FloridaCliff]

#1 Go to Tractor supply or the like and get a rodent feeder. Keeps out the other animals.

They eat it and then die.

The key is keep it away from a source of water, it makes them thirsty, they go drink and then.....Agggggggh!

I have lots of feed for livestock so it is a necessary evil.


#2 Seal around any hole going into the Bus with a rag or whatever.

Don't leave the bricks of poison laying around, as they look like a tasty granola bar at midnight.....

Cliff

[PP]

We live in the woods and near fields and loose pets are not welcome. We've had squirrels nesting inside air intakes. The only remedy we've found to help out is blocking off the obvious holes with 1/8" wire mesh and steel wool. Bait only seems to fatten them up and attract them. Traps without bait are useless. Like BW said earlier, the best attempts only seem to slow them down,    Good luck, Will

[Hobie]

Try this H3Jim.  Instead of loose bait, try gluing the bait into the bait box.  This requires the rodent to gnaw on the bait and not collect it.    Sounds crazy, but I had the same situation and this fixed it.  I have used hot glue as well as regular white glue.   

[belfert]

I've already done what I can to stop larger animals like squirrels.  I had to put hardware cloth over the air intake on my bus as birds built a nest inside completely stopping up the air intake.  When I bought the bus I had to disconnect the piping from the air intake to the air filter as the engine wasn't getting any air.

[47FLXclipper]

similar to Dallas' mix, sawdust and peanut oil does a job on mice, and along with the dryer sheets, mothballs keep them away [with not as pleasant a smell] .... and for UncleNed - cinnamon or turmeric will keep ants away

Bill