"The goods honey is that I cannot find any rot to the rear of the trailer and the frame is very solid with only slight facial rust...." "yeah, I asked for the bad news first"... "Well, the smell of hospital, that is to cover up the rodent urine that is all over in the belly pan. They used all kinds of interesting things to make nests with."... "Is that all the bad news?"... "No."... "Well".... "there is a nice rotten spot under the living room window. I don't think it should be too big of a deal to fix. I will need to remove the gaucho and tear up the rest of the floor covering." That is how I broke it to Beth. Hey, It could always be much worse if you ask me. I could have found the whole back end rotting away. The fear of that was in my head. That fear sent me under Anna with a drill to remove the rivets holding on a patch put on by the previous owner(s). As the patch came loose, so did the strong, pungent odor of mouse urine. The next thing to come loose was nesting materials, much of which found it's way into my shirt, toilet paper, rug, and part of a blue beret were all used along with lots of insulation. The final thing to come rolling out was the shed skin of a very large snake. I hope it was a black snake and it got so big eating a lot of mice.
The main thing that removing the patch did was to give me peace of mind. I have been reading a lot of Blogs that talk of the whole rear end being close to falling off. I was worried unjustifiably, that this might be the case with Anna. I had known that there was a patch to the belly pan located right under the black tank. I also knew that the previous owner(s) had replaced the old style Thetford valve for a new style Valtura. Knowing that something had been done in that area sent me into fear mode. To my surprise the floor is solid all the way out to the perimeter as far as I can reach. I even removed an access hatch under the tub drain so I could check out that area. No rot anywhere. I can see some evidence of water having discolored the plywood, but no damage was anywhere in the rear. The frame has some areas that have slight facial rust, but nowhere is it a serious problem.
Another area of concern has been under the living room windows. The glass had been replaced and the operators were missing from these windows, that in it's self sent up red flags for me. The area just in front of the gaucho at the wall could push in when stepped on firmly. I needed once again to know for sure, so I removed the vinyl flooring and the linoleum tiles under that to find the brown plywood. The cool thing about the brown plywood is how it turns to powder when you touch it.
It should be no big deal to fix this one little area. I will need to remove the gaucho to get at it. Before I fix that area I had better remove all the floor covering and make sure there are not any more surprises under the surface. I am also going to create an access hole under the rot to make sure that the damage is not also to the frame. Better sure, than blind to a potential problem.
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