first season leaving the hauler parked at the lease Sep to Jan, what do i need to know

done it 11 seasons now outside Cotulla. sunday routine takes me about 40 minutes.

turn the fridge off, prop the door open with a towel, take the food home. drain the fresh tank, leave the low point drains open, pull the water pump fuse. batteries: put the disconnect on if you have one, if not pull the negative cable. a fifth wheel with the disconnect off will hold a charge three weeks easy in the fall, in the summer heat maybe two. i put a 100 watt panel on the roof the second season and stopped thinking about it, the controller was 30 bucks and the panel was 110.

rats are the real problem in the brush. dryer sheets do nothing. what works for me is steel wool in every hole where a wire or a hose comes through the floor, the underbelly checked for gaps, and bait stations under the rig. peppermint oil is a myth. the batteries on the tongue are what they go after first, the terminals get pee on them and corrode, so a box over them helps.

one to add. the propane. with the fridge off nothing is running, so shut it off at the tank, not just at the fridge. i had a regulator go bad on a rig at the lease in 2021 and came back to two empty 30 pound bottles and a smell. also tell your insurance it is parked at a lease address for four months. mine did not care but they wanted to know.

the rats. i lost a wiring harness on a hauler at a lease near Kenedy in 2019, 1,400 dollar repair, so listen to brush country on the steel wool. and air the tires up to sidewall max when you leave it, a rig sitting on soft tires in one spot for a month gets flat spots and you feel it at 60 for the first ten miles. chock it, unhook the truck, drop the front jacks onto boards not dirt. the caliche out there turns to soup in a november rain and the jacks sink.

nobody said the water. do not leave the fresh tank full for a month in a texas fall, it will smell like a pond by the time you use it. drain it, then before the first trip in november put a half cup of bleach in the tank, drive out there so it sloshes, drain, refill. and a note on the windmill trough, that water is fine for washing the machine and not fine for the tank, it has cattle in it.