- 7 weeks ago
Make mice and rats disappear by taking away the food, shelter, and entry points that keep them coming back. Esther Yoder shares an old household method that focuses on what rodents actually want: easy meals, hidden nesting spots, and small gaps they can squeeze through.
The advice is practical and plainspoken: store flour, grain, pet food, and bird seed in metal or glass containers, clean up crumbs and overnight food, cover pet bowls, and keep compost, yard waste, and fallen fruit under control. She also explains how to seal cracks, pipe openings, vents, and door gaps with steel wool, then clear clutter, woodpiles, weeds, and brush from around the house. Peppermint may help at the edges, but the real solution is starving them out, shutting them out, and removing shelter.
For anyone looking for rodent control tips, natural pest control, home hacks, pantry protection, or practical mouse and rat prevention, this calm household guide offers a simple way to make a kitchen, garage, basement, and entry points far less inviting. It is useful for viewers searching for old-fashioned home-saving methods, non-poison pest control, and step-by-step ways to keep mice and rats away for good.
The advice is practical and plainspoken: store flour, grain, pet food, and bird seed in metal or glass containers, clean up crumbs and overnight food, cover pet bowls, and keep compost, yard waste, and fallen fruit under control. She also explains how to seal cracks, pipe openings, vents, and door gaps with steel wool, then clear clutter, woodpiles, weeds, and brush from around the house. Peppermint may help at the edges, but the real solution is starving them out, shutting them out, and removing shelter.
For anyone looking for rodent control tips, natural pest control, home hacks, pantry protection, or practical mouse and rat prevention, this calm household guide offers a simple way to make a kitchen, garage, basement, and entry points far less inviting. It is useful for viewers searching for old-fashioned home-saving methods, non-poison pest control, and step-by-step ways to keep mice and rats away for good.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There are few things that turn a body's stomach quite like the signs of rats or mice in the
00:05house. The little droppings in the cupboard, the gnawed corner of a flower sack, the scratching
00:11in the wall at night. And they are no small trouble, for they gnaw at everything, the
00:18food and the wood and even the wires. And they carry sickness in their droppings and
00:23their filth. So you want them gone, and gone for good. Now, you will hear of a hundred
00:30quick tricks, a magic cup of this or that set out to make them vanish overnight. And
00:36I will be honest with you, as I always am, most of those do not work, and the rats keep
00:42right on coming. But there is a way to make mice and rats disappear from your home without
00:49a scrap of poison and without a single trap. And it is the real way, the way that actually
00:56works and actually lasts. And it is the old way. Let me show you.
01:02Here is the thing to understand first, for it is the whole secret, and it changes how you
01:07think about the whole business. A rat or a mouse does not come into your house by accident,
01:13and it does not stay for no reason. It comes for two things and two things only, food and
01:21shelter. And here is the key that follows. If you take away the food and take away the
01:28shelter and shut the doors they come in by, then your house simply stops being a place
01:33worth coming to, and they leave and do not return, for there is nothing there for them.
01:39You do not have to kill them one by one as they keep pouring in. You make your house a
01:45place they cannot get into and would not want to stay in, and the whole tide of them turns
01:51and goes elsewhere. That is how you make them truly disappear, not by a poison that kills
01:57a few while more come, but by taking away the very reasons they came. Starve them out, shut
02:04them out, and clear out their shelter. Now let me give you each part. Quick word before
02:10we go further. My name is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the
02:16kind I am sharing today, and a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into
02:22one video. I have gathered the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:29If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught
02:34me lives, all in the one place. Now, to the rats and mice. My grandmother had a saying that
02:41goes right to the root of this, that you do not chase the flies, you cover the food. She
02:47meant that fighting a pest one at a time, swatting and killing as they come, is endless labor that
02:53never wins. But take away the thing that drew them, and the whole swarm disperses of its
02:59own accord. And rats are the very picture of it, for you could trap and poison forever,
03:05and more would come, so long as your house fed and sheltered them. But take away the feeding
03:11and the sheltering, and they simply have no reason to be there. So here is her way with
03:17the rats, the covering of the food, and the closing of the door, step by step. The first
03:23and greatest thing, the one that does more than all the rest together, is to take away
03:28their food, to starve them out. For food is the main thing that draws them, and keeps them.
03:34Now, a rat and a mouse will eat near anything, and they need very little. So this wants doing
03:40thoroughly. Here is the heart of it. Store all your food where they cannot get at it. In containers
03:46they cannot chew into. And mark that word chew, for it matters, because a mouse and a rat can
03:53gnaw right through a cardboard box, a paper sack, a thin plastic tub, near anything soft,
03:59to reach the food inside. So your flour, your grain, your meal, your beans, your sugar, your
04:07pantry stores, and above all, any animal feed, or bird seed, or pet food, must go into hard
04:13containers they cannot gnaw through. Tight metal tins and cans with good lids, or thick glass
04:20jars with lids, or heavy metal bins for the big stores of grain and feed. This ties to
04:26what I have shown you before about keeping your stockpile and your pantry in good tight vessels.
04:31It keeps the food good, and it keeps the rats out of it, both at once. Get every bit of
04:37food
04:38they might reach into metal or glass, and you have cut off their supper. And there is more
04:43to the starving than the stores. Leave no food out in the open, no crumbs on the counter, nor
04:50scraps in the sink overnight. For a mouse lives on the crumbs we leave. Sweep up and wipe down
04:57of an evening, so there is nothing left out to feed on. Mind your pet's food especially, for
05:03a bowl of dog or cat food left out all night is a feast for rats. Feed your animals, and
05:10then take up and clean the bowls. Do not leave feed sitting out. Mind the compost and the scrap
05:16pail, keeping them covered and tight. And out in the garden and yard, clean up the fallen
05:22fruit under the trees, the spilled seed under the bird feeder, the pet mess, anything that
05:28feeds them. When there is truly nothing to eat, in the house or the yard, the rats have
05:34lost their reason to be there. And this alone will do more than any trap.
05:40The second thing, and near as important, is to shut them out. To seal up the ways they
05:45get in. For it does you less good to starve them if they can still wander in and out at
05:50will, looking for a crumb you missed. And here is a thing that astonishes folk. A mouse
05:57can squeeze through a hole no bigger than the tip of your finger, a gap you would never
06:02think a thing could pass, and a rat through a hole barely bigger. So you must go around
06:07your house, inside and out, low down along the foundation and the walls, and hunt out
06:13every little gap and crack and hole, the places where pipes and wires come through the wall,
06:18the gaps under doors, the cracks in the foundation, the vents, and stop them up. And here is the
06:25best thing to stop a hole with, better than anything soft they could gnaw through. Steel
06:30wool, that scouring wool of fine steel, packed tight into the hole. For a rat cannot chew through
06:37steel wool, it hurts them and they cannot do it. So a hole packed hard with steel wool is a
06:43hole
06:43shut to them for good. Pack the steel wool into every gap and crevice, and seal round it, and put
06:50a good
06:50sweep or seal under the doors. And one by one, you close every door they came in by, until your
06:57house
06:57is shut against them. Starve them out, and shut them out. Those two together are the whole of it.
07:04The third thing is to take away their shelter. For a rat wants not only food, but a warm hidden
07:10place
07:11to nest and breed. And if you leave them such places, they will settle in, even working hard for their
07:17food.
07:17So clear away the clutter where they hide and nest. Indoors, the piles of boxes and papers and rags
07:24and stored clutter in the garage and the basement and the back rooms. The undisturbed heaps where a rat
07:31loves to make its nest. Thin those out and keep things up off the floor and in order. And outdoors,
07:38mine the things heaped against the house. The wood piles stacked against the wall. The piles of brush and
07:44leaves. The long grass and weeds grown up along the foundation. All of which give rats a harborage
07:51right against your house from which to get in. Move the wood pile well away from the house and up
07:56off
07:56the ground. Cut back the grass and weeds along the walls. Clear the brush and clutter, and you leave them
08:03nowhere to shelter close by. No food, no way in, and no place to nest. With those three, your house
08:10stops being a
08:11home to them entirely. Now some of you will ask about the plants and scents you hear tell of
08:16to drive rats off. The peppermint and the mint and such. So let me speak of those honestly. It is
08:23true
08:23that rats and mice dislike some strong smells. And peppermint is the one most spoken of. A little
08:30peppermint oil on a cotton rag tucked into the corners and the entry points, or mint planted about the
08:36foundation and the garden, may help discourage them a little at the edges. For they do not care for the
08:42strong scent. But I will be straight with you. This is a mild help at the margins, not a cure.
08:48And no scent
08:49will drive out rats that have food and shelter to stay for. So use the peppermint if you like as
08:55a small
08:56extra discouragement along with the real work. But do not trust it alone to do the job, for it will
09:02not.
09:03The starving and the sealing and the clearing are what truly work. The scent is only a little help
09:10beside them. Now here is the honest word I always owe you about when this is not enough.
09:18Everything I have told you, the starving and the sealing and the clearing, is how you keep rats
09:24and mice away, and how you turn back all but the worst. And for the most of folk, it is
09:29the whole answer,
09:30done thoroughly. But if you already have a real infestation, a settled breeding population in the
09:37walls or under the floor, then taking away their food and shelter is still the necessary foundation.
09:43But you may need to deal with the ones already in. And here, the honest tool is not a magic
09:50cup,
09:51but the plain snap trap, the old wooden spring trap, used properly and set well along their runways,
09:57which is a quick and clean way to take the ones already established while you starve and seal out
10:03the rest. And for a bad infestation, a real heavy one, especially rats in the walls, and given the
10:11real sickness these creatures carry that the wise are right to fear, there is no shame at all in calling
10:17a professional pest man who knows the work. For a heavy rat infestation is a serious thing, and past what
10:24home measures alone will clear. So, the starving and sealing and clearing for keeping them out and
10:32turning back the most, the proper snap traps for the ones already in, and a professional for a real bad
10:39infestation. Know which trouble you have and meet it with the right tool. Now think a moment about why we
10:47came to believe that ridding a house of rats wants a poison that frightens us to keep near the children,
10:52or a magic cup of something set out overnight, when the real answer is the plain old work of putting
10:59the food in tin and steel wooling the holes and clearing the clutter. It is worse than a plot,
11:05for no one had to arrange it. There is money in the poisons and traps and gadgets sold over and
11:11over to
11:12folk whose rats keep coming back because they never took away the food and the shelter, and none at all
11:18in
11:18teaching you that a rat starved and shut out simply leaves and does not return. So, the plain old
11:25knowing, that you do not fight the rats but remove their reasons, just stopped being handed down, because
11:31no one profits by your solving it for good with a bit of steel wool and a tight tin. My
11:37grandmother kept a
11:38farmhouse and a granary near free of rats her whole life with tight vessels and sealed walls and a clean
11:44yard,
11:44and never a poison. And somewhere between her day and ours, we were taught to buy the poison, and set
11:51the cup, and wonder why they always came back. The mending of it is the old three-fold work. You
11:57starve them out,
11:58putting every bit of food, your stores and your feed and your pets dish, into tight metal and glass they
12:05cannot chew, and
12:06leaving no crumb nor scrap nor open food anywhere. You shut them out, hunting down every gap and hole, and
12:14packing
12:14it hard with steel wool they cannot gnaw, and sealing the doors. You clear out their shelter, thinning the
12:21clutter indoors and moving the wood piles and cutting the weeds from against your house. You may add a
12:26little peppermint as a small help, and use proper snap traps for any already in, and a professional for a
12:33real bad infestation. And your house stops being a place worth coming to, and the rats and mice disappear and
12:40stay gone, without a scrap of poison. That is how it comes home, one tight tin, one sealed hole at
12:47a time,
12:48the keeping of your own house back in your own hands. So here is what I would ask of you.
12:53This week, take the
12:54first and biggest step. Go through your kitchen and pantry and get every bit of food into tight metal and
13:00glass, and hunt down and steal wool the holes you find, and then come back and tell me in the
13:06comments
13:06what you found, and whether the signs of them stopped, for I do love to hear of a plague turned
13:11back by plain sense. And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of your house,
13:18for the old houses have the old gaps, and the country places the most rats, and I learn from every
13:24one of
13:24you how it goes where you live. And if your own mother or grandmother had a way of keeping a
13:30house or a
13:30barn free of rats that I have not named here, tell me that most of all, for that is how
13:36this goes.
13:37We share what we were given. I read every comment, and I learn from you the way the old women
13:43learned
13:43from one another across the fence line, one household and one season at a time. Next time I will show
13:50you
13:51the old ways of keeping the barn and the hen house and the granary free of rats and mice, the
13:56way the old
13:57farm folk protected their stored grain and their feed and their animals from the gnawing things,
14:02with cats and tight cribs and good building rather than poison, for there is a great deal of hard-won
14:09wisdom in how they kept the harvest safe. There is a right and an old way to guard a household's
14:15food
14:15and stores that runs on tight vessels and sealed walls and a clean yard rather than on poison and
14:22endless traps. But this week you start with the house. You starve them out with tight tins and a clean
14:29kitchen. You shut them out with steel wool in every hole, and you clear out their shelter, and you turn
14:35your house from a place that feeds and hides them into a place they cannot get into and would not
14:41want
14:42to stay. And you will understand, as my grandmother did, that you do not chase the flies but cover the
14:48food, that a rat comes only for food and shelter and leaves when both are gone, and that the real
14:55way to make the gnawing things disappear is not a poison nor a magic cup, but the plain old work
15:02of
15:02shutting your house against them and giving them no reason to come. The household kept the plain old way
15:09is the one that remembers how the old farm folk kept the rats from the food and the walls with
15:15tight
15:15vessels, sealed holes, and a clean and orderly house. And that is a thing we are only just starting to
15:22remember.