10 Annoying RV Pet Peeves That Frustrate Us the Most

1. Parts in the way

I’m going to be fair and start with our RV. We absolutely love this thing from tip to tail. But, there’s one thing that really bugs me. Here, we have a living room slide.

Here are the arms for the slide. This is a rack and pinion system. 

You see these little panels that stick down? Those really, really, really get in the way. 

If I want to open that bay, I have to crouch down really awkwardly. This is super annoying.

If you look at the brand new RVs, the entire bottom is a long flat edge. No matter which bay you open you don’t have to duck in between those little pieces.

2. Misplaced lofts

The RV that we are in does not matter. What does matter is that it’s a toy hauler.

This happens in a lot of them. The loft opens out to the living room and not the garage.

If you had kids, you would have all the kids back there. So, in the evening you're here watching TV and making noise. The kid has access to the hearing of all that.

3. Unwanted valances

Why are we doing valances? Everyone hates them and we encounter them all the time.

4. Shoddy screens

I’m not going to go after a specific manufacturer, so I’m covering the name, but here’s the RV price.

The screen door on a coach of this price is super floppy and plastic.

When you’re inside, you have to open the screen to get out and it's floppy. At this price point, give me a nice screen door.

5. Rip-offs and duplicates

One of the biggest RV pet peeves is seeing so much repetition. So many RVs you see are just the same thing over and over again; the same floorplans and layouts.

6. Vexing vents

One of my biggest RV pet peeves is vents that are on the floor. They collect all the stuff you bring in. There are some hacks to get around them, but why?

7. Power towers

I put a towel down and do dishes here. But, as you can already see, the screws are rusted. Water gets in.

And something with the drawers too. See how wide the island is, and how skinny the drawer is? 

The drawer goes in and stops here. All this, back here, is completely wasted space. At the show, we actually walked through a new model and they got rid of this and moved them. I wish they would take the RV out and live in them for a month and figure these things out for themselves first.

8. Confusing campsites

See the campgrounds. There are RVs going both ways. If I pull out to go left, but the other guy wants to park, he goes right. It’s not a one-way street anymore. If we would all face one direction, it would be one way. Check-in and check-out would be easier.

9. Futile furniture

Let’s face it. The furniture that comes with the RV is heavy and uncomfortable. We replaced it with our new furniture within a month of getting the new rig, along with the mattresses. Stop putting the bad ones in. Find a good company, with a great mattress that everybody likes and put them in.

Mattresses aren’t crazy expensive either. You can get good mattresses for a couple of hundred bucks and everybody would be okay with the added cost because getting rid of a mattress when you are replacing one is wasteful and logistically difficult.

10. Senseless sensors

RV sensors are completely inefficient and inaccurate. Most RV tank sensors quit working after your first three trips. You know when your toilet tanks are full because they start bubbling.

Ours still works because we have toilets with tanks on the outside. But our water sensor only measures in thirds. That’s not useful. There’s a big difference between having a tank that’s 33% filled and one that's 2% filled. I won’t know until the sink starts sputtering and I’m out of water.

We also have an issue with our front thermostat sensor. They placed it on the outside, next to a window. When the sun is on that side, the wall gets really hot and, of course, that sensor gets really hot. You never get an accurate measurement off that sensor. 

I had to literally take it out of the wall. There’s a wire that goes around the corner to hang the window valance. Hanging it there gives us a perfectly fine measurement. I want accurate information from my RV sensors at all times.

RV pet peeves

There are frustrating things about the ways RVs are designed. What are your RV pet peeves? Let us know in the comments.