Trailer Up-keep

You all know how much I love owning a trailer. Being able to go wherever I want, whenever I want means freedom. Freedom always comes at a price though. In the case of a truck and trailer combo, the price is literal. A new truck with a living quarters trailer can easily run a hundred thousand or more. Besides the actual price tag, the maintenance on both also costs time and money.

When I came home from my three-day boot camp at STC Dressage, I decided to take my trailer home for the night so that I could clean it the next morning. It had been at least a year since I had done a deep cleaning. With the trailer in front of my house, I can clean without tracking dirt in and out, and I can pressurize the water and use real electricity.

The first thing I did was strip the bed of sheets and blankets and emptied all of the towels out of the bathroom. I did all of the laundry on Sunday night so that it would be clean and dry once I finished cleaning out the inside of the trailer the next morning. I spent a good two hours scrubbing every surface of the inside, especially the shower and toilet. I also oiled all of the cabinets, and scrubbed both screens and doors.

Pre-made bedding ready to unroll.

​Last summer, a friend (THANK YOU, Aime) shared a YouTube video that showed an easy way to remake the bed in a gooseneck trailer. ​I can't find the video, but I didn't forget how to do it. I started off by "making" a bed in the house, and then rolled up the bedding from the bottom to the top and then folded it into a roll. I placed the roll on the trailer's mattress, scooted it to the top, and unrolled it enough so that I could tuck the fitted sheet around the top two corners of the mattress. 

Unrolled but not yet scooted to the top.

Once the top two corners of the fitted sheet were tucked under the mattress, I kept unrolling the package until I could tuck the bottom two corners of the fitted sheet around the mattress.

It changes a horrendous job into one that takes less than two minutes. And, it looks much smoother when made this way versus yanking things around while struggling to avoid banging your head on the ceiling. Once everything was cleaned, the carpets vacuumed, and the linoleum mopped, I let things dry before putting everything back.

I love having a trailer; I hate taking care of it.