If pests are plaguing your mobile home, it is important to attack the problem right at the source. If you’ve got any kind of pests, be they bugs or rodents, beneath your trailer or even RV, the best thing to do is find out what repels them.
The question you may find yourself asking is: pest control under mobile home – what works best?
In this article we will explore the following topics:
- What kinds of pests can be found under a mobile home.
- What works best for getting rid of pests under your mobile home.
What Pests Can Be Found Under a Mobile Home?
The first step to controlling the frustrating pests that might find their way into your life is to learn more about which species are most likely to disrupt your home.
Sometimes when thinking of pests, we immediately assume that insects are the problem. While these do have a role to play in the headache of pests under mobile homes, they are not the only invasive creatures.
Take a look at the pests most likely to cause trouble for you if you live in a mobile home below:
- Rats ; mice
- Termites
- Ants
- Raccoons
To avoid nature’s most annoying critters invading your living space, we’ll go over each of these pests in more detail to discover why they might choose your mobile home to hang out under, and how to avoid their presence.
1. Rats ; Mice
It is a safe bet to say that no matter where you live or decide to take your mobile home, there is already a mice and rat population waiting to cause trouble.
This is because it is estimated that more than 7 billion rats are living all over the world, according to an article by World Atlas.
As intimidating as that may sound, controlling your rat and mice problem when they are found under your mobile home does not have to be intensely difficult.
Why do mice and rats target the underside of mobile homes? Simply because mobile homes provide these little mammals with three key things: shelter, food, and warmth when needed!
Mice and rats look for hidden, enclosed spaces to build nests and breed. Unfortunately, your mobile home is a perfect maze of piping and lines that provide for these needs.
These keep them out of the way of their natural predators, and since your mobile home’s skirting offers a little warmth, too, it is no wonder the rodents gravitate toward your property.
The last thing that rats ; mice are attracted to in your mobile home’s underbelly is the presence of food. Unfortunately, both rats and mice have famously keen senses all trained on finding the smallest crumbs of food to fill their bellies.
Once they locate your mobile home as a place where food is regularly found, they will set up shop.
Mice and rats don’t care if you leave food under your mobile home outside or in the trash cans inside of your mobile home. Once they smell food, they’ll come to cause trouble, sometimes by chewing their way in!
What Works Best in Getting Rid of Mice ; Rats?
One of the best ways to rid yourself of these rodents is by patching holes. Even if you do have food as a constant presence in your mobile home, rodents aren’t likely to stay near a fortress they can’t get access to.
Pipes are the most common places to find rat and mouse tooth marks, indicating that they are trying to gnaw their way to your food.
However, pipes can be difficult to patch if you are not a professional. Instead, invest in a rodent-proof mobile home skirt.
These are specifically designed to protect the nooks and crannies from becoming rat and mouse nests under your mobile home.
Finally, change out your trash cans often and store any open food in sealed tupperware to prevent rodents from homing in on the smell of snacks.
You can also arm mouse and rat traps with peanut butter and place them around the skirting and access points of your mobile home for good measure.
2. Termites
Termites are a particularly dangerous pest because they tend to not only infest a mobile home from below, but also damage the structural integrity over time by eating through the wood. This is done so slowly that it is difficult to notice until the problem is extensive.
Many mobile homes do contain wood pieces in their structure, accessed from below, which can draw in a termite infestation.
If you notice discolored wood, spot a termite around your home’s lights, or hear insect activity like buzzing and chewing, you could have a termite problem.
What Works Best For Getting Rid of Termites?
Termites are most likely to attach themselves to a mobile home’s underside when the wood pieces are soft and burrowing to safety is easiest.
Therefore, make sure you are very wary whenever your mobile home gets caught in a flood or unusually high amounts of water.
It is best to spray essential oils like tree oil, or mist cinnamon oil around the wooden parts of the home. It may sound a little strange, but termites hate these two oils’ scents and may avoid the wood of your mobile home, even if it has recently been flooded.
The best way to rid yourself of termites if they are already in your mobile home, even from below, is to catch the problem early enough and kill the creatures when they are spotted.
3. Ants
Another common scourge on the happiness of a mobile home is ants. These tiny armies of insects can make their way even into the underside and inner workings of mobile homes that are significantly raised off of the ground.
Like almost all of the pests on our list, ants are attracted by food sources. To an ant colony, mobile homes are nothing more than a grocery store on wheels!
However, studies show that there is more to an ant infestation than the presence of available food.
Even if you have all of your loose food and trash sealed up tight, ants may still be found under the mobile home, making their way inside.
This is because ants will spend more time sheltering in the climate-controlled environment of a mobile home when there has been a heavy rainstorm. This is according to a study done by Stanford.edu.
What Works Best For Getting Rid of Ants?
According to the same Stanford study, pesticides are not always effective against ants. Even if you purchase an expensive kind designed to get rid of a queen, the chances are that a different ant colony will find your mobile home and move in just as the old one is dying out.
Therefore, the most effective way to get rid of ants in the mobile home is to eliminate ant trails, store food carefully, and plug up any access points you can find.
To eliminate ant trails, use a cleaning product like Windex Glass Cleaner. Protect not only your food, but the food of any pets by placing their bowls in a shallow pan of water which ants cannot get past.
Using caulk or rubber plugs to thoroughly fill in any holes in the structural integrity of your mobile home is just as important, too.
4. Raccoons
They may look cute, but raccoons are very devious pests. Campers can report raccoons actually learning to unzip backpacks and open coolers in an attempt to get to food using their capable little finger-paws.
One of the worst things to find a raccoon doing around your mobile home, however, is digging!
Raccoons can decide that the underside of your mobile home is a great place to dig for grubs and worms, which is one of their primary sources of food.
Since mobile home lots are usually level and sandy to begin with, a raccoon can find the area easy pickings for both grubs and access to any poorly secured human food in the area.
What Works Best For Getting Rid of Raccoons?
To eliminate the presence of raccoons is no small goal. They are stubborn and clever. However, you can discourage a raccoon from setting up the ground beneath your mobile home as a digging zone by shaking out something spicy in the dirt.
This may seem like a strange solution, but habanero flakes or even chili powder will send a raccoon scurrying to find somewhere less painful to dig.
The only other way to rid yourself of raccoons that think living under a mobile home is a paradise is to call a professional to trap and remove the animal, or simply avoid coming into contact with one by keeping all food tightly secured and all trash removed promptly and often from your home.
In Conclusion
To sum it all up, the pests that plague mobile homes most often are ants, termites, rodents, and raccoons. Each of these critters sets up under the mobile home because it is looking for shelter or food.
If you store all of your food securely, including the frequent elimination of trash, pests will be less likely to invade your space.
As long as you prevent access by plugging up any holes, installing a mobile home skirt to protect piping, and even scatter chili powder and essential oils that pests find unpleasant, you should have adequate control over the pests under your mobile home!
Alright, that’s it for this article, here are a few hand-selected articles that you might also find interesting reads:
Which Pest Control Company Is the Best for Termites?Can Pest Control Get Rid of Stink Bugs?
How Pest Control Treat Bed Bugs
Recent Posts
Tiny Black Bugs in Bathroom NO WINGS: What They Are and What to Do!
Finding tiny black bugs in your bathroom can be uncomfortable, to say the least. Especially if they are persistent, or they appear in very large numbers, which they often like to do. When it...
Tiny Black Bugs in Plant Soil - What Are They & What To Do About It
A short horror story: You get a new houseplant. You do your best to take care of it. You’ve ensured that it has the right soil, the right amount of sun, it gets enough water. And then one day, you...