Thursday, February 23, 2012

A Small Alfa Improvement

The basement doors on the Alfa do not all open in the same direction.  On the driver's side, under the slides, they open "down", or in the case of the sewer bay door, to the side.  On the passenger side they open "up."


I have read on the Alfa forum that the latches are prone to breaking when the doors are allowed to slam down.  And once broken, it is very difficult to get the door open to fix them.  Mention was made of having a child or small person crawl into the basement from the other side!  Neither of us is small, and we have no children around!


I have tried to be gentle with the doors, and even got my finger caught in one while trying to lower it slowly! They are quite heavy and it takes some effort to keep them from slamming.


When we were at the Indio Rally I noticed the neighbor's Alfa had neat little handles on the bay doors.  I asked him if they came that way, (it seems there are many options that people could have) but he said "no", he had bought them at Home Depot.


So the last time I was at Home Depot I got some handles and Craig put them on for me.




It only took him 15 minutes, but hopefully it will save the latches and my fingers! Since I open the bay doors every few days to check for mice they will be well used.


Speaking of mice, I've  caught two in the basement since we got back from our trip, but no signs of any activity upstairs!  I keep a total of eight traps in various locations.


Anyone else have mice this winter?

15 comments:

  1. little mice stowaways seem to be the norm when you have a Rv!..no mice here.. :)

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  2. I don't think we had any mice - no signs of them around that we could see. :)

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  3. Been RVing since I was 3 years old - never had any mice. Thank goodness. Had a bunch in the house attic one time years ago - YUCK!

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  4. Great idea on the handles. We have had no mice at all. Of course there are about 8 feral cats that hang around the neighborhood here. Surprised they survived the flood!

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  5. no mice here...that we know of anyway.

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  6. Nope, never had a Mouse in the mobile house. Never had a Gator that we couldn't find later & never had an Alpha when we went to Philadelphia:))

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  7. Too funny, Al! Glad you haven't seen any little critters of the alive kind!

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  8. I have had no rodents since I left Texas. Guess they all live there. :)

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  9. Had mice in the stix and bricks but not in the RV so far. Thank goodness. Those handles are a great idea.

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  10. We've had mice once and since then we keep some traps out all the time. Only found one in the basement since then. They sure are pesky little critters!

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  11. Very clever with the handles - hopefully they will save your fingers.

    We always keep some traps in the camper, especially in winter as there will always be one or two (or more). We do remove all food in the fall to discourage. Strangely, in the summer, when it is loaded with food we never get any (touch wood).

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  12. As Laura mentioned you never have mice when you are actively using the RV but there is also plenty of vegetation and waste that they live off of during the warmer seasons.

    Now we all go to many extremes to dicourage their occupation of our space when we are not using it but are not always successful.

    I will try to relocate the site and post it on our blog's sidebar, where they have developed a spray that is totally non-toxic bio- degradeable and is applied when winterizing your rig for storage.

    The beauty of this spray is the main ingredients are Peppermint and Spearmint which is totally repulsive to our unwanted guest and the cost is about the same as winterizing you trailer.

    It's about Time

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  13. Ahhh Judy....we don't have any mice in Texas. At least we don't have any in our house or RV.

    http://travelinglongdogs.blogspot.com

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  14. Here is the link to the Spray I mentioned earlier about a mouse spray that works.
    http://www.mouse-free.com/

    If you need protection while on the road when your plugged in there are Sonic PestChasers made by Victor and sold at Home Depot that work great but require power to opperate. They emit a very high pitch sound that drives away the unwanted guest but I don't know how they are with pets.
    http://www.victorpest.com/

    It's about time.

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