Last August I wrote about packing our tent wet after O'Leno and finding mildew ten days later. I ended that post with a drying rule we'd follow forever. This summer I broke it, and this time the canvas belonged to a camper.
How it happened
On our last morning at Pennekamp in July, a shower blew through at 7 a.m. and soaked both bed ends. We had to be off the site by checkout, so we folded the damp canvas in, cranked the roof down and told ourselves we'd pop it up at home the next day. The next day it rained. The day after, it rained again. Then came errands, Dana's shifts and, the last week of July, the youth baseball camp I run, which leaves me fit for nothing but the couch by 5 p.m.
The camper sat closed in the side yard for 13 days in 90-degree heat. When I cranked it up on August 1, the smell hit before the canvas was all the way out: musty and sour, like a gym bag forgotten in a locker over winter break. The inside of the kids' bed-end canvas had gray-green freckles along the bottom fold, where it presses against the mattress when it's closed. Our end had a few spots near one seam. Honestly, I think some of it had been building all summer, a little at a time, every time we closed the camper on a humid morning. July just finished the job.
What we did
This is what worked for us on 17-year-old canvas. I'm not a canvas expert, so if yours is newer or still under warranty, check what the manufacturer says first.
- Opened everything. Both bed ends out, every window unzipped, the door propped and the Ryobi bridge fan running inside. Half the smell was gone in the first hour.
- Brushed the dry spots. A soft brush, outside the camper and downwind, to knock off whatever would come off before anything got wet.
- Washed with the canvas cleaner. We still had half a bottle left from the kit we bought in February. Mixed as the label said, scrubbed gently with the soft brush and rinsed with the hose on its gentlest setting. No pressure washer and no bleach; everything we read said both are hard on old canvas and stitching.
- Let it dry, really dry. We left it open for two full days. It rained on it both afternoons, which is fine. Canvas is made to get wet. It just can't be closed wet.
- Resealed the seams. On the third morning, with the canvas bone dry, I brushed seam sealer over the stitching on the outside of both bed ends and let it cure overnight before closing anything.
- Patched one small tear. Maya found a split about an inch long at the corner of a vinyl window, and repair tape from the same kit took care of it.
The spots are lighter now, but not gone. Some faint shadows are probably permanent. The smell is gone, which was the part that mattered to the four people who sleep in there.
Why we finally bought a cover
We'd talked about a cover since February and kept putting it off. This month we bought an ADCO cover sized for a pop-up with a 10-foot box, $149. Our reasons:
- The side yard gets full sun most of the afternoon, which is hard on the roof seal and on the canvas folded up inside.
- The mango tree drops leaves, fruit and whatever the birds eating the fruit leave behind.
- The cover is vented, so it isn't sealing moisture in.
The tradeoffs are real too. It takes two people about ten minutes to put on, it has to come off before every trip, and a cover does nothing for humidity trapped inside a closed camper. It only keeps the weather off the outside. It also has to come off if a storm is coming, but that's a post of its own.
The new rule
It's last year's rule with a deadline I'll actually keep: the camper gets popped up within 48 hours of every trip, no matter what, and every other Sunday through the rainy season it goes up for an hour with the fan running, cover off and folded on the patio. Nico has appointed himself in charge of the second part. Mostly he lies on the bed end with a comic book, but he does turn the fan on, and he reports any "weird smells" with great seriousness. So far, none.
