Shawn Woods has been trying out different home remedies to repel rodents. A while back he grew some hot peppers with a scoville rating of 2 million (one scoville is the minimum detectable amount of capsaicin, the stuff that makes peppers hot). He mixed his peppers with grain to see if it would repel rats and mice, but it didn't keep them away.

This time, Woods bought some pure capsaicin crystals (16 million scovilles) to see if it would work as a rat repellent. First, he tested some of the crystals on his tongue, and it didn't have much of an effect. Next, he tried a tiny amount of the powder dissolved in vodka and it hit him hard.

He then soaked sunflower seeds in a very strong vodka/capsaicin mixture to see if rodents would eat them. He set a pile of them next to untreated seeds as well as seeds soaked in pure vodka. They favored the vodka-soaked seeds, then finished off the untreated seeds. They did not eat the ones soaked in the capsaicin/vodka mixture. Read the rest

For the last few weeks Shawn Woods has been trying various popular suggestions for keeping rodents away. Nothing has worked. Irish Spring bar soap: the rats ate it. Fabric softener sheets: they used it for nesting material. Wolf urine: they ignored it to obtain food. Hot pepper juice mixed with grain: they ate it.

This week, Shawn is trying another repellent suggested on YouTube: mothballs. He place four mothballs in a small box with a hole cut in it for mice to enter. He sprinkled grain in the box. Shawn said the mothball smell was very strong but the mice didn't care; they entered the box and leisurely ate their fill. He repeated the experiment with 40 or 50 mothballs. The mice didn't seem to mind in the least. Read the rest

Shawn Woods grew some ultra-hot Carolina Reaper peppers in his backyard to find out if they can be used as a rodent repellent. He first ate a whole pepper himself and it made him cry. Then he mixed up some Carolina Reaper into grains and seeds to see if rodents would stay away. The video camera shows that the mice and rats were not bothered by the peppers and pepper juice. Conclusion - hot peppers are ineffective as a rodent repellent. Read the rest

In his YouTube channel description, Sean Woods explains that he created his channel in 2012 as a "fun way to share my passions for history, primitive archery, flintknapping, survival skills, hunting, heirloom gardening, cooking, and a variety of other subjects." He says that last year, "the direction of my channel completely shifted when I accidentally discovered people enjoy watching videos about mouse traps." Now he posts videos almost exclusively about pest control, and he has 800,000 followers.

In this video Woods goes after yellow jackets. Anyone whose been stung by one knows how painful it is. I've been stung by bees many times and I barely care. But a yellow jacket will sting you multiple times in a second and each sting feels like getting punched with an icepick. Woods starts out by digging up an underground wasp nest in his backyard. It looks like a hazardous job. First he sprays wasp killer into the hole in the ground leading to the wasp nest, digs with a shovel, sprays more, and digs some more. Even when he drenches the nest with spray some of the yellow jackets are still active. In fact, Woods was stung by one off-camera, but he does't seem to mind. He must have a very high threshold for pain.

In the second part of the video, Woods tests three wasp traps. Two are store bought, and the third one is homemade. He uses chicken for bait in two of the traps, commenting that the wasps are "greedy" for meat. Read the rest

Homebrew ant killer made from sugar, borax, and water is very effective in keeping ants out of the house. Dissolve a half cup of sugar with 1.5 tablespoons of borax into 1.5 cups of warm water. Then dip a cotton ball into the solution and set it on a countertop (where kids and pets won't eat it). The ants will flock to it and 12 hour later, you won't see any more ants for a long time. Get a one-pound bag of borax on Amazon for $8.50 (which you can also use to make slime).

Image: Balaram Mahalder/Wikipedia Read the rest

Luckily, I'm not an insect, because the packaging for this poison free bug trap appeals to me. I've been using this product for years and it works as advertised. From my 2010 review: "Even if we didn't have a cricket infestation problem I would have bought this box of insect traps, because the packaging is so terrific. My 7-year-old daughter couldn't take her eyes of it. My wife was repulsed by it and made me remove the box from the kitchen, but admitted that its design was striking."

A 12-pack is just $6 on Amazon. Read the rest

I don’t know how he does it, but this golf groundskeeper clearly has a sixth sense when it comes to moles. Read the rest