If there is one thing that will definitely ruin your RV experience it is having ants, roaches, spiders, mosquitoes and mice living with you inside your RV.  My wife refuses to go RV’ing with me until I have done a thorough investigative search of the RV and made sure that these “varmints” are nowhere around. The only thing worse than having these pesky little creatures running about, is having a wife that is terrified of them in the same RV (this is NOT a good combination).

I have done an exhaustive search on the internet to find ways to ensure that our motor home is “varmint” free.
When you are a full-time rv’er, you hear all sorts of “home” remedies for ridding oneself of these critters.  Some are very funny and others are down-right dangerous!  When someone mentions smoking them out, I have to wonder!  So, let’s get started on some practical remedies.

Check out the chart on the right ——-> Click on image to enlarge.

Mice

My kids always thought these were cute little creatures; however my wife has always held a whole different opinion of them.   I have seen her torture one of this furry little animals while trying to get it out of the house.  She hit it with a broom repeatedly, threw shoes at it, threw a pot of boiling water on it and finally drowned it in the kitchen sink. I was laughing so hard I almost wet myself!! I regress……

I never use poisons because if there is another thing that will ruin your rv experience, it is trying to find a rotting corpse!  So, how do you get rid of them…..let’s see.  I have tried, and had the most success, with mouse traps baited with peanut butter  .

Nothing really does the job quite as good as a good “mouser”!  My cat loves to catch anything that wiggles. Of course she gets the biggest thrill out of playing with it before she tries to devour it (I have to pick her up and shake her to get her to drop it.  This works on just about anything that wiggles, crawls or runs (see other remedies in list below).

Spiders

I’m not sure where they come from, but I usually just get rid of them when I find them.  I have found that an ultrasonic repeller seems to keep them away.

Ants

There are many species of ants, and they’re all annoying to have in an RV. Fire ants are the worst due to their sting.  Carpenter ants are next and have an insatiable appetite for wood.  They can ruin your RV if not treated.

Roaches

Before we head out, I always check to ensure I have a good amount of bug/roach spray.  I have a pump sprayer and when I get to my campsite and get set up I spray around my tires, stabilizer jacks and winch on my trailer. I also spread a bit of borax powder inside and along cabinet to deter any that might get in.

Now if a stray roach happens in, it provides hours of fun for me taking bets on who will catch it first, the cat or the wife!

Mosquitoes

Now here is something I never knew, but an old-timer told me this and it seems to work.  He told me if I wanted to get rid of mosquitoes spray the area you are going to be in with Listerine and it will keep them away.  I tried it and sure enough, it works.  I keep a small spray bottle with me when I am outside and spray the areas I am sitting in.  And an occasional squirt in my mouth keeps me kissable (so the wife says)!

While we are on the topic of bugs, I have also heard many ways of removing bugs from the front of your RV.  Here are but a few:

• Apply a light coating of dish soap before traveling
• Brushed on a coat of Johnson & Johnsons Baby Oil before traveling
• Wiping the front of a vehicle with a wet dryer sheet

Feel free to add your own, the weirder the better!

Happy RV’ing!!

Since I travel a lot, I often find myself in places where the water quality is barely adequate to say the least! Now when it comes to water, the wife and I are sorta squimish about what we put into our bodies. If it “looks bad, smells bad or tastes funny, we don’t do it….period!” So, in order to obtain good quality drinking water, we mostly depend on store bought water. But we still need water in the RV to do the necessities of life; bathing, washing, cleaning and for toilet flushing.

Sediment Filter – Just because the water is not murky (or maybe it is), or you cannot visibly see anything floating around in it, this does not mean that there are no contaminates in the water. Even if murkiness is not your complaint, a sediment filter will protect your downstream equipment from premature failure by removing the gunk that could otherwise cause a problem. Not sure if you have priced a water heater lately, but they are not cheap! Sediment filters work by straining out the sediment and holding it. Therefore replacement of the cartridges is required once they become plugged.

Carbon Filter – Have you ever been to a place where the water either tasted funny or smelled bad? The contaminants that affect the taste and odor of water will go right through a sediment filter, so you’ll need to add something else to remove them. Carbon has an uncanny ability to grab onto the bad stuff in water, leaving the water very clean-tasting and odor-free. Just like sediment filters, carbon filters require replacement once they become clogged, however they will not plug up as quickly as sediment filters.

Combination Units – Rather than purchasing two sets of filters (sediment and carbon), combination filter elements are manufactured that remove sediment and make the water smell and taste good. They are compact and relatively inexpensive, and made of carbon-powder-impregnated paper. The downside of these units is that they have a limited carbon component, so the taste-and-odor improvement is much less than you would get from a dedicated carbon filter.

Biological Agents – Biological agents include protozoa, bacteria, viruses, and cysts and spores. The most prevalent are very small (2-4 microns in size). They can be removed with a ultrafine filter that has a rating of 0.9 microns. This removes all pathogenic microbes, however there are still viruses to consider, which are even smaller than can be filtered.

Total Purification – There are two methods that can produce virtually pure water and are

suitable for use in RVs. One is distillation; however it is quite expensive to operate and produces a low volume of clean water. The other, and most recommended for RV owners, is Reverse Osmosis. I will cover reverse osmosis systems in a later blog.

OK, have I totally made you panic? My wife often starts itching and scratching about this time in our discussions….lol. So how do I filter out water so as not to contaminate my hot water heater and plug my system??

Well, for now, I use a double cartridge filter unit. The first cartridge is a sediment cartridge and the second is a carbon cartridge. Make sure you get the units that do not use the clear canisters, as they have a tendency to accumulate algae over time.

Like I said, I usually buy my drinking water, however I am about to install a reverse osmosis unit and when I do, rest assured I will share the installation, as well as the result, with you on my website.

Until then, happy RV’ing!