- Are you worried about
unwanted guests in your RV?
- We're not talking about
guests like cousin Eddie
or someone like that,
what we're talking about
is rodents, spiders,
insects the Creepy crawlers.
- Yeah.
We've not had any problems
in almost three years,
and we're gonna share
our secrets with you now.
(cheerful upbeat music)
We wanted to cover this topic,
because we see it asked a lot online.
- Yeah, and we actually
get this question a lot
about how do we keep pests out of our RV.
Also, we want you to stay
till the end of this video,
because we have a couple of
updates to share with you
about our channel, so stay tuned for that.
But let's get into
talking about what we do
to keep pests out.
Before we ever even got RV,
and we were in the
research stages of it all,
I started hearing horror
stories about rodents
and insects, their horror stories, okay.
(chuckles)
And that's--
- Nobody likes to find out
a mouse in their house.
- [Tara] No, and that was
something that I said,
"We gotta take care of this, right away"
- [Chad] Yeah, because
obviously you're out
and you're in camp
grounds, you're a boondock,
and who knows where you are
or what kind of rodents
might be in that area.
But rodents can fit through
like dime sized holes,
- The tinniest of cracks yeah.
- The can squeeze down, and
mush theirselves into things.
- (chuckles) Right.
- Gross.
- This also, doesn't just
effect part-time RVers,
this affects full-time RVers as well.
- Equally both I would think.
I mean, if your RV is stored,
obviously there are some
precautions you would take
that are different than a full time RVer.
- Right, and we'll touch base
on those in just a little bit.
- So, while we can't guarantee
these particular methodologies
are going to work for you,
they have 100% works for us.
- Yeah, we have not had a single rodent,
we've barely had a spider,
we've barely had insects,
other than if we have the doors open,
- Bugs fly in.
- Let's say it's traveled day,
and we have some flies coming
in or something like that.
- [Chad] Never a single ant in the house,
never a single roach.
- You know, we get the
occasional like gnat--
- Flies.
- Or housefly or something like that,
that's usually our fault
for leaving a door open or something.
- [Chad] A spider now and again,
because those are coming
off trees and stuff,
and coming in different ways.
- Yeah, but very rarely really.
- Very rarely.
So, we're gonna share
with you our top tips.
Number one is fill gaps.
- Yes.
- So, you're gonna get your RV
and it's gonna have Coroplast
or something underneath of it.
And there are gonna be
holes in that Coroplast,
where your spare tire goes,
where you have your dump valves,
other various things.
So, you're gonna wanna
get up under your RV
with some stuff called Good Stuff,
and you wanna get the Pest block variety.
Good stuff, is that spray
foam insulation stuff.
- [Tara] That hardens.
- [Chad] Yeah.
And you know, I got up under our RV,
by our spare tire and other places,
and you just sprayed it up in there,
and let it expand until--
- [Tara] You didn't
really find many places.
- [Chad] No.
- [Tara] Where there were gaps,
but for my mental peace he did it anyhow.
- Yeah.
I basically filled over other
filling just like a tell her,
"Yeah, I filled it."
(chuckles)
- Right, and then you also
wanna check in your basements,
and even in the outside of your RV,
and just look for any places,
where you think that a
critter might be able
to squeeze their way.
- Additionally, on the inside of your RV,
anywhere that there's
plumbing coming through
from the basement area to the living area,
under your sinks primarily,
get in there, look around.
Usually there's pretty big gaps in there,
that way if you happen to get
any past in your basement,
there are at least blocked
from going to level three,
which is into your home.
(chuckles)
That's pretty easy.
You can usually get away with
just one can of that stuff,
and go around and fill everything up.
- Right.
- Also make sure your Coroplast
is tacked in on the sides,
and critters can't get in from the edges.
- So, the next thing that we did,
and we actually did this before
we even moved into the RV,
was I started buying up
like pest repellent stuff.
I didn't buy too much,
but what we did was we did
the little botanical pouches.
There are a couple of different
brands there's Stay Away,
there's Fresh Cab.
We've had good results
with the Stay Away brand,
and it's available in spider
repellent, roach repellent,
rodent repellent, ant repellent.
We've purchased the rodent and spider,
and have we done the ants?
- I think we have some
ant stuff too, but--
- Yeah, we haven't
really had a need for it,
so I think maybe we bought it once.
And what we do is we just
take those little pouches,
and we put them throughout the RV,
in different areas where we think
would be the most effective.
So, in the garage, by the patio door,
I usually keep a couple there.
- [Chad] Tuck them in corners.
- [Tara] Tuck them in corners, yeah.
And we just have them spread
out throughout the RV,
and then we change them out
every couple months or so.
- We also take some of
these spider repellent bags,
and I'll put those up higher,
because typically that's where
spiders are gonna come in.
So, we've got those on top of the bunk,
in the office, slash
guestroom, slash garage.
And we also have some in the
bedroom, like up behind the TV,
just places you can
tuck them in up higher.
- [Tara] And up in the attic.
Well, we call it the attic,
but it's the little loft
sleeping area, yeah.
And then the last thing that we bought
were those ultrasonic
pest repellent devices.
I don't know if they work you guys,
but we have one in the garage,
one in the kitchen area
and one in the bedroom.
- And one in the basement.
- And one in the basement.
that's right, I forgot about that one.
And they're bright white,
so I just took some black electrical tape,
and wrapped it all around it,
so that it kind of blends
into the dark woods,
just so it's not as obnoxious.
But I don't know if these things work,
but we haven't had an issue.
Knock on wood and I hope
we're not jinxing ourselves.
- And the last thing
that we do is we turn on
our underbelly lights.
We have blue LEDs under there,
and we think that probably
helps quite a bit also.
- We have heard that a
lot of people do this.
We actually have some good friends of ours
who found a mouse in their house,
in their garbage can
underneath their sink.
And they were kind of freaking out
because they were like,
"Well, what do we do?"
And so I gave them a list
of all the products that we bought,
and I also told them
about filling the gaps,
and turning on the
lights on the underbelly.
And the only thing that
they did out of that list
was they started turning on their lights,
and they haven't had a problem.
And we're not talking about
the lights like on the front cap,
'cause I know that's a sore
topic for a lot of people.
We wouldn't leave those on all night,
so don't worry about that.
I'm talking about the ones
strictly underneath the RV.
- And if you don't have
those lights on your RV,
which I know a lot of people
aren't gonna have those,
we've seen a lot of people
just use the LED rope lights,
and put those around.
Don't keep them up real bright
to where they're obnoxious and
they bother your neighbors,
maybe you find a colored one.
We have the blue ones, which
are pretty mild looking,
you know, they're not really obnoxious.
- Yeah.
And you can get those,
and you can get the kind of change colors,
but that might help also.
- And speaking of them, having
a mouse in their garbage can,
we did tell them to go ahead,
and get a garbage can with a lid.
So, we do have a garbage
can with a lid on it,
in the bathroom and under
the sink in the kitchen.
- [Chad] So, those are the
four big things that we do.
Some of the other obvious things
that you can do is just keep it clean.
- Right.
You know, pick up the crumbs,
don't leave anything laying around.
If you are part time and
you're storing your RV,
get every last morsel of food
including crumbs out of there.
- Don't leave food in the RV,
even if it's sealed box or bagged food,
get everything out of there,
because you know those rodents
they can chew through that stuff.
So, get it all out,
and if you have kids
and you think that maybe
there's a bunch of crumbs
tucked in underneath your sofa--
- (chuckles) Couch cushion.
- Or something like that.
You might wanna clean that too because--
- You might find some change.
- You might find some change.
There are some other DIY methods
that a lot of people talk about online,
that I've read a lot about.
And people either swear by these,
or say they didn't work at all for them.
So, try them if you want.
We've never tried it,
but I'm talking things like,
peppermint oil on cotton balls,
put like near cracks and crevices,
or anywhere you think
a critter could get in.
Also we hear the Irish
spring soap is supposed
to be a deterrent.
- Fresh and clean as a
whistle, that's Irish Spring,
Fresh and (whistles) clean as whistle.
- I've actually heard other people say--
- They eat it.
- Yeah, that the rodents actually--
- It's delicious.
- eat the soap,
so I don't know.
And then we've also heard moth balls
and dryer sheets and those things.
So, feel free to experiment
and try the different things,
whatever you wanna try,
we haven't had any experience with those.
- Another thing that we'll
do is after I set up camp,
and if I see any ants or anything starting
to crawl on our landing gear or our tires,
I will put down some
actual Pest block spray
that we keep handy.
I also will put down
some Diatomaceous Earth,
which we just started trying recently.
We're not super sure if
that's working or not,
but again why not throw a
little bit of that down too.
- Right, yeah.
- As far as keeping it clean,
also if you're a full time RVer,
keep your snack bags sealed really well,
keep your cereals and things
like that in Tupperware.
We have a pantry organization
thing that we did.
We took all of stuff and
put it in Tupperware,
that was awesome.
- Yeah.
All of my grains and
pastas, and all that stuff,
I keep in tightly sealed plastic,
thick plastic containers.
So, I think that that
helps too, I don't know.
(chuckles)
I don't know if it does.
I mean, again, these are just
the things that we've done
and we've had luck.
- It's probably not one or two things,
it's the combination of all of them--
- Yeah.
- And it's worked for us.
- Let us know, if there's something else
that we didn't mention, that you've tried,
that works for you,
or let us know if you've
tried any of these things,
and they haven't worked for you.
We're just curious,
we wanna see what everyone
else is doing out there.
And this brings us to a couple of updates
that we wanted to mention.
- Right, first of all, you may notice
this is a very short video.
Typically on a holiday weekend,
we just skip that week,
but we wanted to put
something out for you guys,
even if it's just short.
- We're probably gonna do a few
more of these shorter videos
throughout the next couple of months,
because it really helps us to--
- Catch a breath.
(chuckles)
- Yea to catch a breath,
and to give us a little bit of time
to get some other things done,
because our list of other
things is getting longer
and longer.
And so things related to my health issues,
to other work related issues,
so we just need to get some stuff done.
- We are trying to do a
little bit of reorganization,
so we're not working 80 hours a week each.
- Yeah.
(chuckles)
And lastly, you might notice
that our RV is not behind us.
Here's our site.
(chuckles)
- Where did it go?
- Where's our home?
- Oddly enough, this site's empty too,
but that's Jason and Ray from
"The Getaway Couples" site.
- Jason and Ray are over here.
- [Tara] We'll give you a little clue.
- Tom and Sheree are back here.
- [Tara] Yeah.
- We'll give you a little clue,
we're in Elkhart, Indiana
getting some work done.
- Yeah, speaking of pests.
- Speaking of pests.
- Speaking of pests
- There's, get it lined up.
- [Tara] We're talking about pest control,
and you just popped up.
(chuckles)
- Don't worry I'm leaving.
(chuckles)
- That was funny.
- Speaking to Tom, there he is.
We are getting some cool upgrades
that we can't wait to show you guys.
- [Chad] Gonna have some really
cool stuff in the basement
that I'm super excited about.
- [Tara] And some other things too.
- [Chad] And some other stuff.
- So, it's all super secret.
- Super secret--
- Until we tell you about it.
- Coming your way soon.
(chuckles)
- Yeah.
Oh, I know what I wanna say.
Last week's video,
everybody was upset with me
that I didn't put Daisy in it.
- Oh my gosh, we gotta get some Daisy.
- Come here, come here, come here.
And here's a four legged
little furry monster.
That's not a pest.
- She is not a pest.
- She's the best.
- She can be pestering, can't you?
She can pester us sometimes.
- That's only when she needs attention,
because we're spending too
much time editing or something.
(chuckles)
Anyhow, you guys have a
wonderful labor day weekend,
and we will see you next week.
- Yep.
