Can't blame a homeowner for trying..... but he had mothballs hanging outside in all his trees and the attic smelled so bad I sure didn't stay in there long during the inspection. I DID remove the mothballs...... yes, the ones the bats were roosting 5 inches from.

I will never forget the time I showed up to a house and the wife said "my husband is already in the attic and I told him not to do it"........she looked mad too. Come to find out he had the bright idea to chuck 3 full boxes of moth balls into his attic loose and he was trying to find all of them..........the best part was he had white blown fiberglass. The stench was incredible........I often wonder if they got divorced.

Did an attic clean out once for 8K specifically to remove the moth balls the husband put out. Oh yea and they had to move out until I was done because the whole house stunk so bad.

I often see your guys pictures and I like to read the ADC forums. Makes me glad we don't have some of the critters you guys deal with. But seriously, What are Moth BALLS? Ive never seen or had to deal with these before.

I tell them if they were for bats they would call them "Bat balls"

Those 2 dangly things hanging down from a male moth

Google it

Do mothballs work on anything other than moths?

unwanted women use more for better results hehehe

My brother-in-law dumped tow boxes of moth balls down a woodchuck hole. The next day it looked like it had snowed that nigh. LOL

Along those lines...... at the last 5 or 6 mole jobs I set up, the people have been telling me when they use the poison worms (brand name not necessary) they find them pushed back out of the mole run right where they applied them (per directions). I think that's where this saying came from: "You might fool some of the moles all the time, and all the moles some of the time, but never all the moles all of the time." My addition: I can kill all the moles all of the time with traps.

Mothballs are little moth repellent balls of a naphthalene compound that are intended to volatilize and keep clothes moths out of stored fabrics. They smell very strong and the odor is unmistakable.
My mothballs-as bat-repellent story:

A few years back, a large condo complex for which I was working decided to save money and fill a bat-infested attic with mothballs.
Eviction was swift and certain: the tenants became ill and had to move!

I had a similar situation about 10 years ago. A large church had a couple hundred bats.... a long-term bat issue. They dumped many bags of mothballs in the attic. About a week later a new pastor arrived, and shortly became sick from the fumes. Some of the members and janitorial people also became ill.

They called me to check out the bat problem, wondering why they still had bats with all the mothballs up there. They had about 2 inches of mothballs covering much of the attic floor. I couldn't even get throughout the whole attic due to the overpowering odor.

They had to have them removed (of course) to solve the problem of human sickness. They are a TOXIC product, and should never be used in a way that humans can smell them. All you have to do is read the directions to see this. They can only be used in a SEALED area (drawers, storage containers, etc).

I am amazed how many websites actually suggest using them for wildlife control.

Ron, I think when this site suggests using moth balls, they are probably talking about the genuine articles, as opposed to something

sold in a blue box. I've been seeing a lot of guys with magnifying glasses and tweezers lately.

There are a couple stores around my area that have moths balls right along side of the Wildlife repellents and traps....I wont mention Home Depot and Lowes...

TTT

You've never seen a Moth bawl? Very sad. They get those teeny little tears running down their face, and their eyes get all red.