Preppers Nemesis
I want to go back and complete a story that I started a week or two ago… This was in relationship to the “Water, water everywhere” post that I came clean and admitted to making a mistake. I know you remember that one.
I had gotten our skirting project completed all around the outside perimeter of the mobile home. I then had turned my attention to other projects, neglecting to backfill dirt up around the skirting on the three down hill sides. Even after receiving encouragement from our neighbor friend to at least back fill a few inches of dirt against the skirting…
I must have been dense to not have seen the obvious threat of small mammals tunneling under the skirting. I made regular visual inspections around the outside and had not seen any large tunnels but a few very small dusty looking indentions that are only suspicious in hind sight.
When we first had the home brought into our property in was pretty dirty inside and needed a thorough cleaning. That project was overseen by the watchful eye of Mrs. Prepper. She had EVERYTHING pulled out, taken down and disassembled. She cleaned and disinfected every nook and cranny. There was an abundance of rat and or mice droppings throughout the kitchen and bathrooms. Not exactly like there had been an infestation but just a problem that went undealt with…
While the cleaning and sterilization was going on inside I was outside and spending more than my fair share of time under the house. I want to try to describe what the underside of a mobile home is like to those of you that haven’t had the privledge of seeing these first hand. Don’t get the wrong idea I think that what the manufactures have come up with is pretty good but before last summer I had no idea of what to expect…
Vermin Kit
Starting with the metal trailer framework that is placed on top of layered cinder blocks to keep everything up off the ground and level. The frame is tied down to the ground. This is a process that is actually completed with heavy gauge metal strapping that goes around the frame and attaches to giant corkscrews that are 48″ deep in the ground at a 45 degree angle. This strapping is done to comply with local building codes and is suppose to prevent the home from blowing away in a hurricane. I’ve been a long time Washington State resident and have yet to see or hear about a hurricane in Washington but better safe than sorry…
On top of the metal trailer frame the factory lays a heavy plastic sheeting product called a “belly liner” or at least thats what I hear it called? This liner is actually the key to keeping everything weather tight on the underside. It also accomplishes the needed pest control that comes with that environment. On top of this liner and the metal framework the builders will then place the floor joists and framing. Once this is completed they put the floor insulation down below the joists, right on top of the liner. This allows them to have the extra insulated area to run all of the utility systems. Including electrical, plumbing and furnace ducting. From this point all the remaining construction is done very much the same as a conventional house. At least this is true of the manufactured homes built in the last 20 years or so.
I had done a very brief inspection under the home at its prior location but only from the access panels in the skirting located at either end of the home. I knew at that time there was some tears in the belly liner but “hey whata ya gonna do”. It wasn’t until the home was at its new resting place that I was able to get under and take a good look. That is as good a look as you can get with maybe an 18 – 24″ clearance in the center and about 12″ from the bottom of the frame to the ground. Please keep in mind that I’m a full sized American man and more than 12″ inches thick…
Glue Traps
What I found was a number of large tears and lots of small ones. Since this is my first mobile home experience I have know idea if this was normal or what. I spent a full day trying to repair the liner to the best of my ability but there was a considerable amount of time between the home placement and when I got it all closed back up!
When I was making my attempts to repair these holes, I was able to see up inside. Most of the time the insulation was still intact but I could make out the trails or burrows that I presume rats had made. There were a lot of droppings in there! I could, in a couple of places that the insulation had been disturbed, see all the way up to the joists and subfloor. Now, I’m not the brightest bulb in the box but I am assuming that if I can see up there so can the rats and in our particular case the mice…
I made the best repairs to the belly liner that I could. Mostly this required that I attempt to stretch the plastic sheeting back into place and try to use a duct tape product on the seem. I initially tried to use the traditional “Duct Tape”, this was met with unsatisfactory results. We’ve all heard that you can repair anything with duct tape, well I’m here to tell you that they hadn’t ever tried it on mobile home belly plastic…
I was able to find a product called “Gorilla Tape”, it is a heavier variation of Duct tape and black in color. I wish I could tell you that this is some sort of miracle product but its not. It worked better than the silver duct tape but just barely got the job done. However, in both products defence, they don’t claim to be able to do this job…
Alright, now I had the belly back in order with every cut and tear I could find patched as best as I was able to do. I did complete a few other small repairs to some plumbing for the outside faucets at the same time but that may be another story for another day. I felt pretty good about what I had done and with the skirting up, everything should be snug…
Snap traps
We were able to continue this belief unchallenged for several months. All was good and we were fully enjoying our new little home. We had made many trips back and forth without incident. The cupboards were full and minus a few dead bugs on the random window sill when we arrived, everything was always exactly as we left it.
Then it happened, we arrived late one Friday night to find a house full of mouse crap… Its funny how the little turds can almost escape your sight, at first… Once you’ve seen them, the world opens up and you can spot them from a mile away! This was completely unacceptable! Mrs. Prepper spent an hour or so doing the best she could to vacuum them all up but we knew that the little SOB’s were in there watching us. I know this sounds dramatic and we all do realize that these are only mice but they WERE NOT welcome in the house.
Needless to say the mouse issue was moved to the front of the list bright and early the next morning. We scoured the place cleaning and looking for anywhere that the little suckers could get in… We looked high and low without finding even one entry point. The only thing that we could think of was that they could be getting in through the heat registers? I had gone down to the local hardware store and purchased what are called “Glue Traps”. We put these throughout the house, including in the heat vents and proceeded to wait for the next event.
We didn’t wait long either, that night we heard noises coming from the heat vent right next to our bed. Now, I had tied a string to the glue traps before I put them in the registers so I could retrieve them if needed. When we heard the noises we flipped on the light and started looking down that vent. WAIT A MINUTE? Where the heck is the string? We hadn’t initially noticed but the string had been pulled down the hole and upon opening up the vent the glue trap wasn’t in sight either… Alright, at least we know where they are now!
Needless to say, it wasn’t a restful sleep that night knowing that we had visitors running around. I can already hear it so don’t even bother with the emails, “Prepper, can’t you handle a little mouse” or “what are ya gonna do when the MZB, mutant zombie bikers, show up?”… All things can be dealt with but it isn’t the most fun thing to imagine mice on the pillow next to your head.
Well, back to the hardware store, this time for something to screen off the vents. I found what I needed with some 4″x12″ vent covers usually used around an exterior foundation. I screwed these in place on top of the heat registers. With these in place and a thorough search of the house for vermin not turning any up. We felt comfortable again and would wait for the suckers to get caught on the traps, allowing us to get rid of them one at a time.
This time when placing the glue traps I tied on the string but also attached it to the vent itself so as not to lose any to only partially stuck mice. At this point we had done all we could to prevent entry and the weekend was winding up, so we packed it in to head for home!
We returned a couple of weekends later and anxiously entered the house to see what the damage might be… So far so good, no turds upon initial inspection. Now to check the traps, nothing on the ones that were left in the corners inside the house. OK, lets take a look down in the vents – one and only one critter found, in the vent that we had heard it in on the previous trip. No bad but still not sure if this one little guy had done all that poopin? We reset that trap and go about our business…
Outside I had taken what little amount of unfrozen gravel I could find and covered over the areas I thought the mice might be crawling under the skirting. I noticed a pattern developing right away, whenever I did this, we would be woken up in the middle of the night with sounds of things banging around under the house… Alright, how could a tiny mouse be making such a huge amount of noise? I would go out in the morning expecting to see a full fledged burrow running under the house with a pack of coyotes having moved in. Nothing out of place, WAIT, the small indentions in the gravel are back… OK, at least now I know what to be on the look out for.
I forgot to mention that I had put a box of DECON poison under the house when I had installed the vent covers inside. So I take a peek to see if the box had been disturbed? It was upside down and empty a few feet from where I had left it. Its all starting to come together for me, these guys are crawling under the wall and getting trapped when I block their tunnels. So all night they are making a racket while they push their tunnels back open.
- Proven Hole Plugger
While the ground is still frozen close to solid outside I would be unable to easily back fill around the skirting. This left us with the vents covered and the traps in place for the remainder of the winter. This is alright with me as long as we have a good idea of what needed to be done to remedy the issue once and for all when the ground thawed.
We start to feel pretty secure in the fact that we have these guys beaten. They may be down there but they can’t get back up into the house anymore. At least that was what we thought! Months had gone by and we came in one Friday evening to find a corpse on one of the traps in the kitchen? How did that happen? Did he run in when the door was open or what? So the search was on once again… High and low, low and high but no entry point is discovered. Well, we convince ourselves that this had to be a freak event with a brave mouse running in when we where coming or going through the door. So trap reset and off we go back home at the end of the weekend.
Next trip same thing happens, poop in the house and a few of the strings that are attached to the traps are all frayed from being chewed on! However, no mouse on the traps this time – OK, this can only mean that I have missed something somewhere and they can get in at will… I turn the place upside down and then finally find what I’m looking for!
I had looked behind the kitchen sink cabinet and not found anything on a couple of occasions but this time I know it has to be somewhere in the kitchen that they are getting in. This is where the dead guy was and all the chewed string? I take everything apart and still don’t see any holes? Then I think to get a small hand sized mirror and look under the toe kick from behind… OK, there it is a nice mouse sized hole! Upon further inspection I was able to determine what the hole was… The previous owner had removed a cover that surrounded a plumbing pipe under the sink and then used a spade drill bit to hog out a hole to run the water line over to where the refrigerator was, to hook up an ice maker. Needless to say this hole was exactly what the mice were using to get in.
I knew what to do to fix this… I stuck a wad of steel wool into the hole and then I filled much of the cavity under the cabinet with expanding foam. I have had good results with mice and rats not chewing through the steel wool in the past. With the expanding foam in place the steel wool wouldn’t be able to be pulled out of the hole either. This time I’m quite sure that we have this thing beat. All that needs to be done yet is getting the walls back filled so the critters can’t tunnel under anymore either.
Within a month I was able to get enough dirt pushed up against the skirting to prevent the mice from getting in any longer. With the DECON under there and no means to escape, it would only be a short time until all the mice under the house would die. Then we would have this wrapped up for good.
No more mice in the house and nothing is eating the DECON I left behind the skirting. So, I’m betting we have it under control. I am told by the folks in the know that you never get past the possibility of having mice from time to time but it sure looks like we have for now at least.
Next time I’m going to be listening more carefully to my neighbor when he queries what my plans are for this or that. I could have avoided the whole fiasco if I had only done the back filling when it should have been done, “”live and learn!”
Prepper
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The Invasion…
By PrepperPreppers Nemesis
I want to go back and complete a story that I started a week or two ago… This was in relationship to the “Water, water everywhere” post that I came clean and admitted to making a mistake. I know you remember that one.
I had gotten our skirting project completed all around the outside perimeter of the mobile home. I then had turned my attention to other projects, neglecting to backfill dirt up around the skirting on the three down hill sides. Even after receiving encouragement from our neighbor friend to at least back fill a few inches of dirt against the skirting…
I must have been dense to not have seen the obvious threat of small mammals tunneling under the skirting. I made regular visual inspections around the outside and had not seen any large tunnels but a few very small dusty looking indentions that are only suspicious in hind sight.
When we first had the home brought into our property in was pretty dirty inside and needed a thorough cleaning. That project was overseen by the watchful eye of Mrs. Prepper. She had EVERYTHING pulled out, taken down and disassembled. She cleaned and disinfected every nook and cranny. There was an abundance of rat and or mice droppings throughout the kitchen and bathrooms. Not exactly like there had been an infestation but just a problem that went undealt with…
While the cleaning and sterilization was going on inside I was outside and spending more than my fair share of time under the house. I want to try to describe what the underside of a mobile home is like to those of you that haven’t had the privledge of seeing these first hand. Don’t get the wrong idea I think that what the manufactures have come up with is pretty good but before last summer I had no idea of what to expect…
Vermin Kit
Starting with the metal trailer framework that is placed on top of layered cinder blocks to keep everything up off the ground and level. The frame is tied down to the ground. This is a process that is actually completed with heavy gauge metal strapping that goes around the frame and attaches to giant corkscrews that are 48″ deep in the ground at a 45 degree angle. This strapping is done to comply with local building codes and is suppose to prevent the home from blowing away in a hurricane. I’ve been a long time Washington State resident and have yet to see or hear about a hurricane in Washington but better safe than sorry…
On top of the metal trailer frame the factory lays a heavy plastic sheeting product called a “belly liner” or at least thats what I hear it called? This liner is actually the key to keeping everything weather tight on the underside. It also accomplishes the needed pest control that comes with that environment. On top of this liner and the metal framework the builders will then place the floor joists and framing. Once this is completed they put the floor insulation down below the joists, right on top of the liner. This allows them to have the extra insulated area to run all of the utility systems. Including electrical, plumbing and furnace ducting. From this point all the remaining construction is done very much the same as a conventional house. At least this is true of the manufactured homes built in the last 20 years or so.
I had done a very brief inspection under the home at its prior location but only from the access panels in the skirting located at either end of the home. I knew at that time there was some tears in the belly liner but “hey whata ya gonna do”. It wasn’t until the home was at its new resting place that I was able to get under and take a good look. That is as good a look as you can get with maybe an 18 – 24″ clearance in the center and about 12″ from the bottom of the frame to the ground. Please keep in mind that I’m a full sized American man and more than 12″ inches thick…
Glue Traps
What I found was a number of large tears and lots of small ones. Since this is my first mobile home experience I have know idea if this was normal or what. I spent a full day trying to repair the liner to the best of my ability but there was a considerable amount of time between the home placement and when I got it all closed back up!
When I was making my attempts to repair these holes, I was able to see up inside. Most of the time the insulation was still intact but I could make out the trails or burrows that I presume rats had made. There were a lot of droppings in there! I could, in a couple of places that the insulation had been disturbed, see all the way up to the joists and subfloor. Now, I’m not the brightest bulb in the box but I am assuming that if I can see up there so can the rats and in our particular case the mice…
I made the best repairs to the belly liner that I could. Mostly this required that I attempt to stretch the plastic sheeting back into place and try to use a duct tape product on the seem. I initially tried to use the traditional “Duct Tape”, this was met with unsatisfactory results. We’ve all heard that you can repair anything with duct tape, well I’m here to tell you that they hadn’t ever tried it on mobile home belly plastic…
I was able to find a product called “Gorilla Tape”, it is a heavier variation of Duct tape and black in color. I wish I could tell you that this is some sort of miracle product but its not. It worked better than the silver duct tape but just barely got the job done. However, in both products defence, they don’t claim to be able to do this job…
Alright, now I had the belly back in order with every cut and tear I could find patched as best as I was able to do. I did complete a few other small repairs to some plumbing for the outside faucets at the same time but that may be another story for another day. I felt pretty good about what I had done and with the skirting up, everything should be snug…
Snap traps
We were able to continue this belief unchallenged for several months. All was good and we were fully enjoying our new little home. We had made many trips back and forth without incident. The cupboards were full and minus a few dead bugs on the random window sill when we arrived, everything was always exactly as we left it.
Then it happened, we arrived late one Friday night to find a house full of mouse crap… Its funny how the little turds can almost escape your sight, at first… Once you’ve seen them, the world opens up and you can spot them from a mile away! This was completely unacceptable! Mrs. Prepper spent an hour or so doing the best she could to vacuum them all up but we knew that the little SOB’s were in there watching us. I know this sounds dramatic and we all do realize that these are only mice but they WERE NOT welcome in the house.
Needless to say the mouse issue was moved to the front of the list bright and early the next morning. We scoured the place cleaning and looking for anywhere that the little suckers could get in… We looked high and low without finding even one entry point. The only thing that we could think of was that they could be getting in through the heat registers? I had gone down to the local hardware store and purchased what are called “Glue Traps”. We put these throughout the house, including in the heat vents and proceeded to wait for the next event.
We didn’t wait long either, that night we heard noises coming from the heat vent right next to our bed. Now, I had tied a string to the glue traps before I put them in the registers so I could retrieve them if needed. When we heard the noises we flipped on the light and started looking down that vent. WAIT A MINUTE? Where the heck is the string? We hadn’t initially noticed but the string had been pulled down the hole and upon opening up the vent the glue trap wasn’t in sight either… Alright, at least we know where they are now!
Needless to say, it wasn’t a restful sleep that night knowing that we had visitors running around. I can already hear it so don’t even bother with the emails, “Prepper, can’t you handle a little mouse” or “what are ya gonna do when the MZB, mutant zombie bikers, show up?”… All things can be dealt with but it isn’t the most fun thing to imagine mice on the pillow next to your head.
Well, back to the hardware store, this time for something to screen off the vents. I found what I needed with some 4″x12″ vent covers usually used around an exterior foundation. I screwed these in place on top of the heat registers. With these in place and a thorough search of the house for vermin not turning any up. We felt comfortable again and would wait for the suckers to get caught on the traps, allowing us to get rid of them one at a time.
This time when placing the glue traps I tied on the string but also attached it to the vent itself so as not to lose any to only partially stuck mice. At this point we had done all we could to prevent entry and the weekend was winding up, so we packed it in to head for home!
We returned a couple of weekends later and anxiously entered the house to see what the damage might be… So far so good, no turds upon initial inspection. Now to check the traps, nothing on the ones that were left in the corners inside the house. OK, lets take a look down in the vents – one and only one critter found, in the vent that we had heard it in on the previous trip. No bad but still not sure if this one little guy had done all that poopin? We reset that trap and go about our business…
Outside I had taken what little amount of unfrozen gravel I could find and covered over the areas I thought the mice might be crawling under the skirting. I noticed a pattern developing right away, whenever I did this, we would be woken up in the middle of the night with sounds of things banging around under the house… Alright, how could a tiny mouse be making such a huge amount of noise? I would go out in the morning expecting to see a full fledged burrow running under the house with a pack of coyotes having moved in. Nothing out of place, WAIT, the small indentions in the gravel are back… OK, at least now I know what to be on the look out for.
I forgot to mention that I had put a box of DECON poison under the house when I had installed the vent covers inside. So I take a peek to see if the box had been disturbed? It was upside down and empty a few feet from where I had left it. Its all starting to come together for me, these guys are crawling under the wall and getting trapped when I block their tunnels. So all night they are making a racket while they push their tunnels back open.
While the ground is still frozen close to solid outside I would be unable to easily back fill around the skirting. This left us with the vents covered and the traps in place for the remainder of the winter. This is alright with me as long as we have a good idea of what needed to be done to remedy the issue once and for all when the ground thawed.
We start to feel pretty secure in the fact that we have these guys beaten. They may be down there but they can’t get back up into the house anymore. At least that was what we thought! Months had gone by and we came in one Friday evening to find a corpse on one of the traps in the kitchen? How did that happen? Did he run in when the door was open or what? So the search was on once again… High and low, low and high but no entry point is discovered. Well, we convince ourselves that this had to be a freak event with a brave mouse running in when we where coming or going through the door. So trap reset and off we go back home at the end of the weekend.
Next trip same thing happens, poop in the house and a few of the strings that are attached to the traps are all frayed from being chewed on! However, no mouse on the traps this time – OK, this can only mean that I have missed something somewhere and they can get in at will… I turn the place upside down and then finally find what I’m looking for!
I had looked behind the kitchen sink cabinet and not found anything on a couple of occasions but this time I know it has to be somewhere in the kitchen that they are getting in. This is where the dead guy was and all the chewed string? I take everything apart and still don’t see any holes? Then I think to get a small hand sized mirror and look under the toe kick from behind… OK, there it is a nice mouse sized hole! Upon further inspection I was able to determine what the hole was… The previous owner had removed a cover that surrounded a plumbing pipe under the sink and then used a spade drill bit to hog out a hole to run the water line over to where the refrigerator was, to hook up an ice maker. Needless to say this hole was exactly what the mice were using to get in.
I knew what to do to fix this… I stuck a wad of steel wool into the hole and then I filled much of the cavity under the cabinet with expanding foam. I have had good results with mice and rats not chewing through the steel wool in the past. With the expanding foam in place the steel wool wouldn’t be able to be pulled out of the hole either. This time I’m quite sure that we have this thing beat. All that needs to be done yet is getting the walls back filled so the critters can’t tunnel under anymore either.
Within a month I was able to get enough dirt pushed up against the skirting to prevent the mice from getting in any longer. With the DECON under there and no means to escape, it would only be a short time until all the mice under the house would die. Then we would have this wrapped up for good.
No more mice in the house and nothing is eating the DECON I left behind the skirting. So, I’m betting we have it under control. I am told by the folks in the know that you never get past the possibility of having mice from time to time but it sure looks like we have for now at least.
Next time I’m going to be listening more carefully to my neighbor when he queries what my plans are for this or that. I could have avoided the whole fiasco if I had only done the back filling when it should have been done, “”live and learn!”
Prepper