We bought our 9922 Hi-Lo Classic 8 years ago. It came via the Portland area from Pismo Beach, California, to our home in Pocatello, Idaho. Along with a lot of snappy spider webs and one of the biggest black widow spiders I've ever seen. At least that was underneath rather than inside the trailer. But it still gave me a start when it dropped 6 inches from the auto stroller I was lying on. It made a big dark spot on a brand new leather glove.
Then just today, I popped up the inside floor of an upper wall cabinet by the door, and vaccumed out several hundred if not thousands of small black ants. We had seen the occasional ant when using the trailer over the years, but just assumed they were getting in at our storage spot near our house. Maybe you can seal a Hi-Lo well enough to keep the larger vermin out, but there's no way to keep out little ants.
Now I have no idea how long that colony of ants was living in the Hi-Lo. I suppose they could have come from Pismo Beach, but not sure that's realistic. The reason I found them now was, when I opened the trailer for the season, there was a pile of what might have been chewed up Styrofoam on the ledge below the window, a couple of inches deep and maybe 6 or so inches long. And bits of the stuff on the end of the couch and in the cabinet itself. I got a vacuum out and cleaned that up along with 6 or 8 ants in the cabinet. I saw a couple more ants walking around in the light fixture underneath the cabinet.
My first reaction was to visit this forum to see if anyone had a clue of how to get into the space in the bottom of the cabinet, as there is a void there where the light wiring goes. Not many hints to be found, but somebody said the inner bottom was secured with just a few staples. So the next day (today) i went out and pried on it with a bent putty knife. It came up amazingly easy, with only two or three staples in the whole piece of paneling. Then I shone a flashlight under there and was horrified by the hundreds of ants and areas of ant eggs just laid out several places in the open.
Luckily the vacuum was still close to hand. I spent the next couple hours vacuuming all the little vermin up initially and then stalking the ones that kept appearing out of various cracks and crannies. I finally decided I had enough for now and went down to a store to buy some ant baits to help finish off the stragglers. In my haste I forgot my wallet, so that task will have to be done tomorrow.
I thought of taking a picture of the infestation but did not want to delay vacuuming them for a second. We sealed the vacuum bag and dropped it in the trash so the ants wouldn't find their way back up the suction hose in the night.
Good thing I started preparing for our first trip with a couple of weeks lead time. What if this had been just a day or two before were to leave town? Sheesh.
Roger
PS: Jack, I didn't know whether to start a new thread, but this one had sealing the trailer in the title. You can move it if you like. There may be others who would like to relate their adventures with insects!
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Roger
1999 22L Classic
2008 Toyota 4Runner V6
McKesh Mirrors
Andersen Hitch
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