- 45 minutes ago
The real Amish-inspired rat control secret is simpler than poison: seal the house, clear the food, and make the rats stop coming in the first place. Drawing on old household wisdom, this narration explains how to find thumb-sized gaps, pack them with steel wool and caulk, keep grain and pet food locked away, and use peppermint or cayenne as added deterrents.
It also covers the honest way to handle rats already inside with snap traps placed along the wall, plus a low-cost bucket-and-can trap used on farms. The focus stays on practical pest control, humane rat removal, and budget-friendly home maintenance, while warning against dangerous poison baits and stressing safe cleanup around droppings.
Created for viewers searching for rat control tips, Amish home remedies, DIY pest prevention, and old-fashioned household advice. A useful watch for anyone looking for natural rodent control, pantry protection, and simple ways to keep rats out of the house without spending much.
It also covers the honest way to handle rats already inside with snap traps placed along the wall, plus a low-cost bucket-and-can trap used on farms. The focus stays on practical pest control, humane rat removal, and budget-friendly home maintenance, while warning against dangerous poison baits and stressing safe cleanup around droppings.
Created for viewers searching for rat control tips, Amish home remedies, DIY pest prevention, and old-fashioned household advice. A useful watch for anyone looking for natural rodent control, pantry protection, and simple ways to keep rats out of the house without spending much.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There is an old woman on a crowded street, houses shoulder to shoulder, old pipes running beneath the narrow road,
00:07rats in that ground for longer than anyone can remember.
00:11Her neighbors fight those rats all year, the poison and the traps, and the man who comes twice a season
00:17and charges deer, and still the rats come.
00:21But step inside her door, and you will not find a rat, nor a trap, nor a speck of poison,
00:27and there has not been one in forty years.
00:30She does not fight the rats at all. She does something her neighbors never thought to do, something that costs
00:37not a penny, and today I am going to show you exactly what it is. Let me show you.
00:42Here is the thing to understand first, for it turns the whole battle around, and it bears saying plain.
00:49Fighting the rats you see is bailing water out of a sinking boat without plugging the hole.
00:55You can kill every rat inside, and while the gaps stand open and the food sits out, more walk in
01:01from the street and the drain to take their place, and you bail forever.
01:05So the winning is not in the killing at all. It is in the two things that come before it,
01:10shutting every way in, so no new rat can enter, and taking away every food, so no rat has a
01:17reason to come.
01:18Do those two, and the rats simply stop, for a sealed house with a bare table is, to a rat,
01:25a locked door with nothing behind it.
01:27Only after those two do you deal, cheaply and honestly, with any already in. Uninvite them first, kill last. That
01:36is the whole of the method.
01:38And here is the plain truth it all rests on. You do not have a rat killing problem. You have
01:44a rat invitation problem.
01:45Every rat that ever got into a house was invited in, not on purpose, but through an open gap it
01:51slipped through, and a food it could smell.
01:54Now let me give it to you, step by step. Quick word before we go further. My name is Esther
01:59Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me,
02:03the kind I am sharing today, and a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit
02:08into one video.
02:09I have gathered the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:15If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught me lives, all
02:21in the one place.
02:22Now to the rats. Now this is not some secret of one people alone.
02:26The careful housekeepers of every land learned the same thing, that a clean, tight house keeps the rats out,
02:33and it is the very wisdom my own mother and grandmother kept.
02:36My grandmother had a saying for it, that a clean house is a closed door to trouble,
02:41and the wise woman keeps trouble out rather than fights it in.
02:45She meant that the most of what plagues a household, the pests and the rot and the vermin,
02:51is kept out entirely by cleanliness and good order and a tight house,
02:55so that the woman who keeps her house clean and sealed scarcely ever has to fight the trouble at all,
03:01for it never gets in.
03:03And the rat is the very picture of it.
03:05So here is her kind of keeping out, the sealing and the clearing and the honest tools.
03:10So, the first work, the sealing, the shutting of every way in,
03:15for this is the foundation and without it nothing else lasts.
03:19Take a light and walk slow around the outside and inside of your house,
03:23low along the walls and foundation, and look at every place a pipe or wire enters,
03:29every vent, every crack and gap.
03:32And here is the fact that tells you how small a gap to look for, and it will surprise you.
03:37A rat can squeeze its whole body through a hole no bigger than your thumb, about an inch and a
03:43half.
03:43If you can slide a pencil into a crack, a rat can work through it.
03:47So you are hunting gaps far smaller than you would think.
03:51And every gap you find, you pack tight and full with steel wool.
03:55And here is why that and not something softer.
03:58A rat's teeth never stop growing, so it gnaws always,
04:02through wood and plastic and soft concrete like they were nothing.
04:06But it cannot chew through metal, so the steel wool packed hard into the gap,
04:11sealed over with caulk for a permanent barrier, shuts that door for good.
04:16Hunt every thumb-sized gap and pack it with steel wool.
04:21That is the first and greatest work.
04:23And here is a fine addition to the sealing,
04:26an honest deterrent that helps at those entry points,
04:30for the rats hate a certain burn.
04:33The stuff that makes a chili pepper hot, the cayenne, rats cannot abide.
04:38It burns their nose and their lungs, and they will not push through it.
04:43So you can mix a good deal of cayenne pepper powder into your caulk
04:47before you seal the gaps with it.
04:49And the sealed gap now not only blocks them, but burns them if they try it.
04:56Cayenne in the caulk, a sealed gap that bites back.
05:00Now the second work, the clearing of the table,
05:03the taking away of every reason a rat has to come.
05:07So you lock down the food, all of it.
05:11Store your grains and flour and dry goods in tight glass or metal with firm lids,
05:18not the paper and cardboard a rat chews through in a moment.
05:22Take the garbage out every night in a can with a tight lid.
05:27Never leave the pet's food bowl out on the floor overnight,
05:30for that is a feast set for a rat.
05:33Keep no crumbs, wipe the hind and under the stove and refrigerator
05:38where the grease gathers, clean under the sinks.
05:42And out of doors, mind the compost kept closed,
05:46the fallen fruit, the spilled birdseed.
05:49A house with every food locked away gives a rat nothing,
05:54and a rat that finds nothing moves on.
05:57Lock down every food, leave them nothing.
06:00And here is a second honest deterrent for the inside,
06:05to help drive out any that are about.
06:08And again, I give it honestly, as a help, not a cure.
06:12Peppermint.
06:13A rat finds its whole way by its nose, by smell,
06:18and a strong smell overwhelms it and drives it off.
06:22So soak cotton balls in pure peppermint oil,
06:25and tuck them at the entry points and the places rats travel,
06:30under the sink, behind the refrigerator,
06:33by the water heater, at the attic hatch.
06:36And the strong mint confuses and offends their smelling
06:39and helps drive them out.
06:42But mind, the oil dries out and loses its strength,
06:45so you must renew the cotton balls every few days.
06:49And know it is a help to the sealing and clearing,
06:53not a thing that works alone.
06:56Peppermint at the runs, an honest help, renewed often.
07:00Now, having sealed the house and cleared the table,
07:04we come to the honest ways of dealing with the rats already inside.
07:09And here I will give you the good, plain, safe ways,
07:12and be straight with you,
07:14for I will not have you set a cruel or dangerous thing about your house.
07:19Do not, I tell you plainly, reach for a poison,
07:23nor for the homemade baits that are meant to kill a rat
07:27slowly and cruelly from the inside,
07:30the ones that harden or swell within it.
07:33Those are cruel.
07:34They do not reliably work.
07:36And worse, a sweet bait laced with such a thing,
07:40set on your floor is a danger to your own children and pets
07:44who may find and eat it.
07:46Leave those alone entirely.
07:49The honest, humane, safe way to take a rat already in the house
07:54is a proper snap trap, quick and done in an instant.
07:58And I have two clever old tricks to make it work far better.
08:03The first trick, a genuinely clever one
08:06that overcomes the rat's own nature.
08:08Do not set the trap when you first put it out.
08:12A rat is deeply suspicious of anything new.
08:16It will not trust a strange thing at once.
08:19So you place your snap trap along the wall,
08:22baited, but leave it unset, not armed,
08:26for three or four days,
08:27and let the rats find it and eat the bait off it,
08:31unharmed, night after night,
08:33until they trust it as a safe, familiar food source.
08:37And only then, after they come to it freely,
08:41do you arm it.
08:42Now the rat that has trusted it for days
08:45steps on it without fear,
08:47and the trap does its work at once.
08:50Bait it unset for days to win their trust,
08:54then arm it.
08:55That is the trick that makes a snap trap deadly.
08:59And the second trick, the placing.
09:01A rat runs the wall, hugging the baseboard,
09:05for out in the open feels exposed.
09:07So set your traps right along the wall.
09:10Turn so the baited trigger end faces the wall, crosswise,
09:14so the rat running its wall path comes right over the trigger.
09:18And do not set just one.
09:20For a real trouble, set a good many.
09:22A dozen is not too many.
09:24Along the runs where you have seen the droppings.
09:27Traps along the wall, trigger to the baseboard,
09:30and many of them.
09:32Now, one more honest old catch worth knowing.
09:35A mechanical one that costs almost nothing
09:37and takes many rats in a night
09:39without your resetting a thing.
09:42A real farmer's trick from where rats threaten the stored grain.
09:46Take a five-gallon bucket and fill it a third with water.
09:49Lay a thin rod across the top,
09:51and onto it slip an empty can smeared with a little peanut butter at its middle,
09:56so the can spins freely.
09:58Then lean a bit of scrap wood up to the rim as a ramp.
10:02The rat climbs the ramp for the peanut butter,
10:05steps onto the can,
10:06it spins under its feet,
10:08and rolls it into the water below,
10:10and rights itself for the next.
10:12One bucket can take many rats in a night,
10:14and the old farmers lined several along a granary wall
10:18and cleared them each morning.
10:20The spinning can bucket,
10:22a cheap old catch that resets itself.
10:24Now, here is the honest word about the limit,
10:27for I will not oversell even the right method.
10:30This whole way, the sealing and the clearing and the traps,
10:34is the true and complete answer for the ordinary rat trouble,
10:38and done faithfully, it wins.
10:40But if you have a house or a barn truly overrun,
10:43a heavy infestation deep in the walls,
10:46then the sealing and clearing are still your necessary foundation
10:50and will do most of the work,
10:52but a bad one may want a professional besides to reach what you cannot.
10:56And hear this plainly, for it matters.
10:59Rats carry real disease in their droppings and their leavings,
11:03so when you clean up after them,
11:05do not stir the dry droppings into dust you breathe.
11:08Dampen them first, wear gloves, and wash well after.
11:12Match the effort to how bad it is,
11:15and mind the health of it.
11:16Now think a moment about why we came to fight rats forever,
11:20with costly poison and exterminators,
11:23bailing the same boat every year,
11:25when the old way was simply to seal the house,
11:28and clear the table, and be done.
11:30For nothing.
11:32It is worse than a plot,
11:33for no one had to arrange it.
11:35There is a steady trade in the poison pellets,
11:38and the yearly exterminators call for a trouble that never ends.
11:42And none at all in teaching folk
11:44that a rat is invited in through a gap and a crumb,
11:47and uninvited by steel wool and a clean pantry, for free.
11:52So the plain old knowing,
11:54that you keep the rat out rather than fight it in,
11:57just stopped being handed down,
11:58because no one profits by your sealing your own house once,
12:02and never buying a pellet again.
12:04The careful housekeepers of the old world
12:07sealed their houses tight,
12:09and kept their food locked and clean,
12:11and scarcely saw a rat in a lifetime.
12:13And somewhere between their day and ours,
12:16we were taught to leave the gaps open,
12:18and buy the poison.
12:19The mending of it is a light,
12:22some steel wool,
12:23a clean pantry,
12:24and a good trap.
12:25You hunt every thumb-sized gap,
12:28and pack it tight with steel wool,
12:30sealed over with caulk and cayenne mixed in,
12:33so no new rat can enter.
12:36You lock down every food in tight glass and metal,
12:39take the garbage out nightly,
12:41lift the pet bowl,
12:42and keep no crumb,
12:44so no rat has a reason to come.
12:46You tuck peppermint at the runs as an honest help.
12:50And for any already in,
12:52you use the snap trap,
12:53baited unset for days to win its trust,
12:56and then armed,
12:57or the spinning can bucket,
12:59and never a cruel or poisonous bait near your children.
13:02And for a house overrun,
13:05you add a professional,
13:06and mind the disease as you clean.
13:08And your house is a locked door to the rat,
13:11one before the fight began,
13:13for nothing.
13:14That is how it comes home,
13:16one sealed gap,
13:17one cleared crumb at a time,
13:19the keeping of your own house back in your own hands.
13:23So here is what I would ask of you.
13:25This week,
13:26do not set a single trap first.
13:28Instead,
13:29take a light and walk your walls,
13:31inside and out,
13:32and find the thumb-sized gaps you never knew were open,
13:36and pack them with steel wool,
13:37and lock down your food,
13:39and come back and tell me in the comments
13:41where the rats were getting in,
13:43and what you sealed,
13:44for I do love to hear of a body
13:46shutting the door on the trouble before it starts.
13:49And tell me, too,
13:50while you are there,
13:51your county,
13:52and the age of your house,
13:54for the old houses settle open the most gaps,
13:57and want this most,
13:58and I learn from every one of you
14:00how it goes where you live.
14:02And if your own mother or grandmother
14:04had a way of keeping the rats out
14:06that I have not named here,
14:08tell me that most of all,
14:09for that is how this goes,
14:11we share what we were given.
14:13I read every comment,
14:14and I learn from you
14:16the way the old women learned from one another
14:18across the fence line,
14:19one household and one season at a time.
14:23Next time, I will show you
14:24the weekly and seasonal keeping
14:26that makes sure the rats never come back,
14:29the quick walkthrough behind the stove
14:31and under the sinks,
14:33the checking of your seals each season
14:35as the house settles and opens new cracks.
14:38For a rat is endlessly patient
14:40and will probe your defenses for weeks
14:42looking for one opening.
14:44There is a right and an old way
14:46to keep a household free of rats for good
14:49that runs on a sealed, clean, well-kept house
14:53rather than a yearly war with poison.
14:55But this week, you start with the uninviting.
14:59You seal your gaps with steel wool
15:01and lock down your food
15:02so no rat can enter nor find a reason to come.
15:06You tuck your peppermint
15:08and mix your cayenne in the cock.
15:10And for any already in,
15:11you use the honest snap trap and bucket,
15:14never a cruel bait.
15:16And you will understand, as my grandmother did,
15:19that a clean house is a closed door to trouble,
15:22that you do not have a rat-killing problem
15:24but a rat invitation problem,
15:26and that the fight is won
15:28not by killing the rats you see
15:30but by uninviting them,
15:32sealing every door and clearing every table
15:35so the rat has no way in
15:37and no reason to come.
15:39The household kept the plain old way
15:41is the one that remembers to keep the trouble out
15:44rather than fight it in.
15:46And so is a locked door to the rat
15:48and scarcely ever sees one.
15:51And that is a thing
15:52we are only just starting to remember.