HELP!!!!!!!!! Snake and mothball question

[TLHB70]

Ok, Ok, Ok......I am sure that this will make me look like a complete idiot. I know that I should have expected this, but honestly, I didn't. We just recently moved into our new house at the end of January in NC. This is the first house that we have ever owned that has a crawl space. (Since we are from LA we always had a slab foundation.) Well, we live on a wooded lot with a creek in the backyard. We have been warned of snakes at summer. We have already seen one in the road. We were told that mothballs around the perimeter of the house and yard, and in the crawl space, will help deter the snakes. I searched and read online about that. From what I read, the mothballs also help keep away other rodents and crawling things -- racoons, mice, etc. So my DH put moth FLAKES around the creek and in our crawl space yesterday. When I woke up this morning the entire bottom floor of our house smells like mothballs. It is awful!!!!!!!!!!! What can I do? How long does it take the smell to go away? I am hoping that since these are flakes and not balls that they will dissolve faster and the smell will go away sooner. I don't want snakes, but I don't want this smell either!

 

[Marseeya]

Good question and I'll be watching for the answer to the whole mothball/snake thing. I'd like to know if it really works!

DS found a snake in our yard over the weekend and now nobody will go in the yard. Least of all me, because I'm deathly afraid of them! I thought about doing the mothball thing, but then I realized that if there's actually a snake IN the yard, won't the mothballs trap it there??

 

[DukeStreetKing]

Just remember the grand circle of life. Snakes take care of the other pests on your property. Get rid of a predator and you will soon have lots of it's prey running around. Snakes aren't all that bad. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. Make sure all cracks and openings leading in to your house are sealed up and you shouldn't have too many problems with snakes coming in. I've dealt with snakes and scorpions when I first built my house in Florida. After the first year, the scorpions weren't a problem and I learned to keep a keen eye out for the snakes. Only had one pygmy rattler in the house and after I found it, I had 2 halves of a pygmy rattler.

 

[Marseeya]

Just remember the grand circle of life. Snakes take care of the other pests on your property. Get rid of a predator and you will soon have lots of it's prey running around. Snakes aren't all that bad. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. Make sure all cracks and openings leading in to your house are sealed up and you shouldn't have too many problems with snakes coming in. I've dealt with snakes and scorpions when I first built my house in Florida. After the first year, the scorpions weren't a problem and I learned to keep a keen eye out for the snakes. Only had one pygmy rattler in the house and after I found it, I had 2 halves of a pygmy rattler.

No thanks! I'll leave it to my dog & cat to take care of the other pests, thank you. They're sweet and furry

 

[live4christp1]

My mom always does the mothball thing....sometimes so strong it's almost unbearable to be in their house. The smell lingers for quiet some time, not sure with the flakes. From what I read online, the smell of the moth balls really doesn't work. There is a repellent you can buy, it is pretty expensive, it's Dr. _______ (? name) snake be gone or snake away or something to that affect. I found it by doing a search for snake repellent. We live right at the base of a mountain so we usually kill a few each summer. With two small kids I am not going to find a poisonous snake in my yard and leave it hoping that it will just wander away on it's own. Sorry to all you snake lovers but in my opinion the best snake is a dead snake. JMHO. Sure wish I could find a dog like we had when I was young......he hated snakes, if he found one he would snatch it up and sling it until it was just pieces. He usually got bitten in the process but just swelled up for a day or two and then went away. My dad said that it was because he had dew (sp ?) claws and it made him immune to the poison. My dad always took him in the woods with him and once stepped in a hole with two copperheads, Star-rocket (don't ask me where I got the name, I was just a kid and have no idea what inspired that) killed them both. Fortunate for my dad he had on high boots because they both struck him when he stepped in the hole.

 

[TLHB70]

With two small kids I am not going to find a poisonous snake in my yard and leave it hoping that it will just wander away on it's own. Sorry to all you snake lovers but in my opinion the best snake is a dead snake. JMHO.

My thoughts exactly! That is why we put out the mothballs.
I read online somewhere that the same active ingredient in the snake away stuff is the same as in the mothballs. I am not sure if that is correct or not. I thought that it would be worth a try. Now I regret it because of this smell.

Live4christp1, do you remember how long the smell was at your mom's. Was "quite some time" months? weeks? days? My mother-in-law is coming for a visit in three weeks. Do you think the smell will be gone by then?

 

[live4christp1]

Live4christp1, do you remember how long the smell was at your mom's. Was "quite some time" months? weeks? days? My mother-in-law is coming for a visit in three weeks. Do you think the smell will be gone by then?

It was weeks at least but she used boxes, and I do mean boxes, of the moth balls. I think hers was even worse because she put some in the attic too. They didn't have any central heat and air at the time (my dad is very old fashioned and don't believe in air conditioning, says it makes you spoiled where you don't want to work outside) so no real air circulation might have made it seem to linger in their house longer. I do know it takes a while for those little balls to completely disappear, dogs don't like them either, you can put them around your flowers to keep the dogs from rolling in the flower bed. Hope your smell goes away soon, have never used them at our house as I hate that smell so much.

 

[TLHB70]

Well, DH only put out one box. He divided it between the crawl space and the edge of the creek. So that means that we don't have a full box down there. Plus, they are flakes and not balls. (Our grocery store didn't have the mothballs, only the flakes.) Hopefully that means they will dissolve faster. I HOPE!!!!!!!!

 

[airhead]

Last year I (stupidly) dispersed a box of mothballs around my garage because of squirrels getting in. Not only did the house reek but our throats and sinuses were irritated from the chemicals. And,to make matters worse,when I called the pest control they said I wasted my money on the mothballs because it did NOT deter rodents!! I collected all the mothballs I could find(I stuffed some in the walls!) and still it took months for the oder to leave. On a damp day,I can still catch a whiff!!!

 

[minkydog]

A word of warning about mothballs--they are highly toxic to humans. The fumes are known to cause blood disorders. Do not use them in your home to deter pests. My MIL used to toss them around the house(no kidding) and you could smell it all the way outside. One day i got fed up and called Poison Control--that's when i found out how poisonous they are! My MIL does not believe me to this day, but I do. And I collected up every last one of those blasted balls and tossed them in the trash. She has not forgiven me yet, and it's been 6 years!

I would call Poison Control to find out how to safely dispose of the flakes. You don't want to be vacuuming them and get them broken up and aerosolized.

 

[Spinning]

A word of warning about mothballs--they are highly toxic to humans. The fumes are known to cause blood disorders. Do not use them in your home to deter pests. .

I second this one. When I was growing up it was told to put them in your vacuum cleaner to kill fleas. So when ever you ran the vacuum.....nice smell of moth balls!

I then spoke to my vet about the best treatment for them and what I had been doing . I was pregnant at the time. She said to stop immediately that the fumes were toxic not only to my pet but to me...Since then I have never used them.

 

[TLHB70]

Thanks minkydog and spinning!!! Needless to say, that scared me to death. I just called our poison control center. The lady told me that inhaling the fumes can cause problems. However, she said that it is unlikely that it will happen to us since it is in the crawl space and not in the house or vent system. She said that there is a difference between the fumes and the odor. She said that we will definitely have the obnoxious odor. WE DO!!!! She suggested opening doors and windows and turning on fans to try to air out the smell. Well, I don't want to open all doors because I don't want a snake in the house. I do have a screened in back porch so I have my back door open with the fan going. I hope that it will offer some relief.

 

[darlene9947]

I don't know if this is true or not, but an elderly lady told me years ago to put lime all around the edge of your fence. She said something about the lime being caustic and irritating snakes on their bellies. Like I said, I don't know if it's true or not, but she sure believed it!

I just remembered, I had a small hole right outside my patio doors and my dog was always barking and sniffing around it one day. I don't know why I thought of snakes, but it must have been intuition or something. As I was watching the dog go crazy, she backed up and a black headed small snake popped its head up from the hole! OMG, I about lost it!! Snakes scare the bejeezus out of me. The only thing I could think of that was caustic, was my gallon of bleach in the laundry room. Oh, man, was that a sight - me jumping up & down while trying to open the patio doors just a crack to throw bleach down that hole. I used the whole bottle of bleach. The snake eventually crawled all the way out and slithered across the backyard. The bleach didn't even bleach him!! But he didn't come back!!!

 

[pirateofthecarolinas]

We've been in our home for 16 years and I've only seen one black snake. He was crawling up the outside of the french doors to our sunroom during a thunder storm.

We live in front of a lake. We have a lot of spiders but they don't bother me like snakes. I know we have poisonous snakes in NC but I've never seen one. I hope you can get the smell out of your home. Try not to worry about the snakes.

Lori

 

[Ratpack]

Oh my goodness! We just had this happen to us on Saturday. We have been here 3 months, little bit of woods out back and a small creek about 30 ft or so back from there. My kids and neighborhood kids were playing...one little boy cries "Snake!!" The kids start dancing around including ME!! You should have seen that! My DS (2) is barefooted in the woods, mind you. They all run up to the deck while DH went to look- 3-3 1/2 foot Copperhead snake!!!!! YIKES!! I will never go outside again! My biggest fear on this Earth!
I have heard of the mothballs and the Lyme too. But snakes LOVE pine straw! That is coming up and then mulch going down. Then I am coating the grass and perimeter with everything that I can find.
Anyone need to move...my house will be up for sale, IF I see another one!
The best snake is a dead snake!!!

 

[Boston Tea Party]

If moth balls are toxic, then what is their intended purpose?

My MIL's house smells like moth balls, too. Maybe that's why they are so whacked out.

 

[TLHB70]

posted by Boston Tea Party
If moth balls are toxic, then what is their intended purpose?

You know, Boston Tea Pary, I wondered the same thing when I talked to the poison control lady. I thought about all of the elderly people, my grandmother included, that keep/kept them in their homes. My grandmother smelled like moth balls and her house always smelled like mine does now. There are lots of people inhaling the fumes.

posted by Ratpack
But snakes LOVE pine straw!

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have pine straw down in our landscape all around our house. We had mulch and bark at our old house. The pinestraw was included in our builder's landscape package. It is everywhere around the perimeter of our home and the yard. Now I am even more terrified!
My DH will kill me if I ask him to take all of that up and replace it with something else. I guess I will have to put something else out to repel/deter the snakes. It will just not be mothballs/moth flakes again! I just woke up this morning and the smell is still as strong as yesterday. I have already raised two windows and have every fan on that is in the house!!!