The different sounds of living in an RV - and your interactions with animals.

[stevenssr]

I've hate squirrels running around on the roof at night. At least I think they are squirrels. You just hear scurrying around in the dark. In one of my houses, squirrels got in through a gap in the roof overhang, had babies, and would not be kept out of the house. I covered the hole with a 2x4 and it chewed through that. I put up a mesh wire across the hole. It chewed through that. Finally, I had to trap it and haul it away. When the animal control guy came he put on a worn out glove, reached his hand into that trap and pulled that squirrel out of the trap and put in his truck. By the time he was done, he had a bloody hand cause that thing was biting the heck out of him. One day before it was caught, I saw it in the tree outside the house, so I stood between it and the house trying to shoe it the other way. Bad idea. It charged at me. After all that, I know a squirrel can get into these RV's if they want, so I hate hearing them at night.

On one trip after we extended the slides, the slide went up close to a tree and a branch rubbed at one of the windows in the wind. So, I was sitting there making breakfast and I hear a thud. I couldn't figure it out and it happened again. This time I see a bird trying to fly through a closed window. It must have tried 50 times to fly in through that window. It would sit on a branch and look into the RV and I'm sure he was thinking "I'll just fly in there and get some food". Entertaining, but the bird must have had a headache. Even when I tried to shoe it off, it would hover for a second and then try to fly right back in to that window.

Whether it's squirrels or birds, I think it helps to make sure trees are not in direct contact with the RV. That makes it to easy for them to get on the RV.

But it's all part of the experience that makes this stuff fun.

 

[ParkIt]

Had fun last year cleaning all the slide out gaskets & seals from black widow spiders nests. That was after being bit while sleeping and subsequent inspection at dusk for where they were nesting...which was almost everywhere on the non-sun facing side of the 5er.
Fun times! (not)

Last year I think there were a few that had a huge ladybug problem from a rally - seems they had ladybugs swarming everywhere inside for a couple of weeks because of the slide gaskets, vent pipes, AC units...it didn't sound fun because you can't exactly run through any of these units with a catcher

Its the little buggers who love the slide gaskets and they aren't easy to clean and one Goldfinch the other day who kept attacking the window. It saw another male and was trying to chase it off when it was his reflection. I was inside and got some good pictures when not laughing so hard - it also camouflaged the cats who were glued to both entry slide out windows chattering away

 

[wdk450]

Birds will nest in your pin box and make quite a mess of it.

Kristy

Kristy:
I kept finding this happening at my storage facility a few weeks ago - I would tear out the nest (no eggs) and the nest would be back the next day. I finally got out a roll of white duct tape (WalMart has duct tape in many colors), and taped over the opening, just allowing the umbilical cord to come out.

 

[Miltp920]

A neighbor of ours in campground solved this bird in hitch problem placing a plastic owl on the hitch. Scared the birds away. I use the same owl and a hawk. Birds in a hitch can make a real mess.

Have had several birds try to live in the pin box. Some friends of ours had bees take up residence in there & even made it inside the camper!