Seal Rat Gaps With Steel Wool: Homemade Rat Control Without Poison

Name: Seal Rat Gaps With Steel Wool: Homemade Rat Control Without Poison
Uploaded: 2026-09-22T13:03:42+00:00
Duration: 16 min 25 s
Channel: Esther Yoder

00:00A grown rat can squeeze its whole body through a hole the size of a quarter, and a mouse

00:06through a gap no wider than a pencil. Think on that a moment, for it changes everything

00:12you thought about keeping them out. That little crack under your door, that gap where the

00:18pipe comes through the wall, that space you cannot even get a finger into, to a rat that

00:25is an open front door, and it will flatten its ribs and push through it in the dark while

00:31you sleep. And here is the hard truth that follows. You can bait them and trap them and

00:38chase them all winter, but as long as those doors stand open, more will keep coming in

00:44from outside, from the sewer, from the neighbors, from the field, one after another, forever.

00:52So today, I am not going to show you another thing to kill the rats you have. I am going

00:59to show you the old way to shut the doors so no more can get in, and make your house

01:05a place

01:06a rat simply cannot enter nor live, which is the only thing that ends it for good. Let

01:13me show you. Here is the thing to understand first, for it is the whole reason folk fight

01:19rats forever and never win. Most everyone fights the rats they can see, the ones already

01:25inside, with a trap or a bait, and kills a few and feels they have done something. But

01:32the rats you see are not the problem. They are the symptom. The problem is that your house

01:38is open to them and worth coming into. And as long as that is true, for every rat you kill,

01:44another walks in from outside to take its place, because the door is open and the table is set.

01:52So the whole secret, the thing the pest men know and folk do not, is that you do not win

01:58by killing the rats inside. You win by shutting the ways in and taking away the food and the

02:05shelter, so that no rat can get in and none that does can find a reason to stay. Kill the

02:11ones inside if you must, yes, but that is the small part. The real work, the work that ends

02:18it, is sealing the house and starving it. Shut the doors and clear the table, and the rats

02:24stop coming. Now let me show you how, step by step. Quick word before we go further. My name

02:31is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing today, and

02:38a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video. I have gathered

02:45the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com. If today's tips serve

02:52you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught me lives, all in the

02:57one place. Now, to the rats. My grandmother had a saying that fits this exactly, that you do

03:04not sweep the water while the roof still leaks, you go up and mend the hole. She meant that

03:11it is foolishness to keep fighting the same trouble over and over at the point where you

03:16see it, mopping and mopping, while the true cause, the open hole, goes unmended, and that

03:22the wise soul goes to the source and shuts it off, and then the mopping is done forever.

03:28And a rat coming in through an open gap is the very picture of a leaking roof. Kill it and

03:34the water still comes, mend the hole and it stops. So here is her kind of hole mending,

03:41given to the rats, and it is three works. Find the doors, shut the doors, and clear the table.

03:48So, the first work, find the doors, the ways the rats are getting in, for you cannot shut

03:54what you have not found. And rats leave their sign if you know how to read it. Look low, along

04:01the bottoms of the walls, in the corners, behind and under things, for that is where a rat runs,

04:07always hugging the wall, never out in the open. First sign, the droppings. Little dark grains

04:14gathered along their runs, which tell you where they travel. Second sign, and this one is clever,

04:21grease marks. A rat's body is oily and dirty, and it runs the same paths over and over, rubbing

04:28the same corners and the same edge of the same hole, until it leaves a dark, greasy smudge

04:34there. Those smudge marks are a map of their roads, and, above all, of the holes they use,

04:40for the greasiest smudge is often right at their favorite doorway. And third, the gnoll marks,

04:46the chewed places where they have made a small gap bigger. Follow the droppings and the grease

04:53smudges low along your walls, and they will lead you to the gaps the rats are using. Find the doors

05:00first. Now, the second work, and the heart of it all. Shut those doors, and shut them with the right

05:09thing, for here is where most folk fail. You find a gap, and you stuff it with something, and a

05:16week later,

05:17the rat has chewed right back through and is in again, and you think sealing does not work.

05:24But it was the wrong stuff. Here is what you must understand. A rat's front teeth never stop growing

05:32its whole life, so it must gnaw constantly to wear them down, and it can gnaw through wood,

05:39through plastic, through the spray foam, through cardboard, through soft caulk, through most anything

05:45soft, like it was nothing. So if you plug a hole with foam, or plastic, or wood, you have only

05:52given it a chewing exercise. What a rat cannot chew through is metal. So the old sure way to seal

06:00a rat

06:00hole is to pack it tight and full with steel wool, the coarse metal wool, jammed hard into the gap

06:07so

06:08there is no give, for the rat cannot gnaw through the metal and cannot pull the packed wool out,

06:13and there it stops. For a bigger hole, use the metal hardware cloth, the stiff wire mesh,

06:20cut and fitted and fixed over the gap, or packed with the steel wool and then sealed over.

06:27Metal is the word. Steel wool and wire mesh, packed tight, is what shuts a rat door for good,

06:35where foam and wood only slow it a week. Pack every gap you found with metal.

06:40And where are these doors, so you know where to look? Everywhere a pipe or a wire comes through a

06:47wall, for there is nearly always a gap left round it, a favorite way in. Under and around the doors,

06:54the gap beneath an ill-fitting door, which wants a good door sweep fitted to close it. The vents and

07:01the gaps up under the eaves where the roof meets the wall, for rats climb far better than you think,

07:07and come in from above. The gaps where the foundation meets the house, and any crack a coin

07:13could pass. Go round your house, inside and out, low and high. Find every gap a quarter could pass,

07:21and pack it with metal. It is a day's work, but it is the day that ends the rats, where

07:27the trapping

07:27never did. Now the third work, which shuts the reason they come even where a door remains.

07:34Clear the table, take away the food and the water and the shelter, so that even a rat that finds

07:40a

07:40way in, finds nothing worth staying for. And here I must correct a thing folk believe. Many think a

07:47clean house means no rats, and that is not quite so. For a rat will come from outside, from the

07:54sewer and

07:54the field and the neighbors, whether your house is clean or not. But here is what is true. A house

08:00with no

08:01food and no water and no shelter for them gives them no reason to stay, so they move on.

08:07So it is not about clean for its own sake. It is about leaving them nothing. Take away their food,

08:15the big one. A rat gnaws through a cardboard box or a plastic bag in a moment, so your dry

08:21goods,

08:22your grains and flour and cereal, must be kept in tight metal or thick glass with firm lids a rat

08:29cannot chew into. No food left out overnight, no crumbs, no dirty dishes standing. And mind

08:36three things folk forget. The pet's food bowl left down overnight, which is a feast, so take

08:43it up. The compost, kept in a closed bin, not an open heap. And out in the yard, the fallen

08:50fruit under the tree and the spilled seed under the bird feeder, which draw rats to your very

08:55walls. Take away their water, fix the drips and the leaking pipe, and empty the standing water,

09:02for a rat must drink and will settle where the water is. And take away their shelter, clear out

09:08the clutter where they nest, the piles of boxes in the basement and shed, the wood pile stacked against

09:14the house, the tall weeds grown up against the walls, for a cleared, open, tidy edge gives them

09:21nowhere to hide or nest. Starve them, dry them, and clear their shelter. And even a stray that

09:28gets in finds no reason to stay. Now what of the rats already inside while you seal and clear?

09:36For those, do not reach for a poison. And here is the honest why. A poison bait set out is

09:44a danger to your

09:45children and your pets, who may find and eat it. And worse, a poisoned rat crawls off to die inside

09:52your wall, where you cannot reach it and stinks for weeks. The better, honest tool for a rat already

10:00in the house is a proper snap trap, the good, sturdy kind, used right. It is quick, done in an

10:08instant, which

10:09is the more humane way. And it leaves no poison about the house, nor a rotting rat in the wall.

10:16Bait it with a little peanut butter, which they cannot resist and cannot snatch away as they can a

10:22bit of cheese. And set it right along their run, against the wall where the droppings and grease marks

10:29showed you they travel, with the trigger end toward the wall, for a rat runs the wall and comes upon

10:36it

10:36nose first. Set several along the runs, not just one. And here is the honest word about the limit,

10:44for I will not oversell even the right method. If you have a heavy infestation, a house or a barn

10:52truly overrun with rats, or if they are deep in the walls and the structure, then understand plainly,

10:59the sealing and starving and trapping are still the right and necessary foundation and will do most

11:07of the work. But a bad infestation is a hard thing and may want a professional besides who can find

11:14and

11:15reach what you cannot. And hear this plainly too, for it matters. Rats carry real disease in their

11:23droppings and their urine and on themselves. So when you clean up after them, do not stir up

11:29the dry droppings into dust you breathe, dampen them first, wear gloves, and wash well after.

11:37A rat problem is not just a nuisance, it is a health matter, and worth taking seriously and

11:43getting proper help for if it is bad. Honest about that. Now think a moment about why we came to

11:50fight

11:50rats forever, with a trap here and a bait there, killing a few and blaming ourselves as more keep

11:57coming, when the old way was simply to shut the house against them and leave them nothing and be

12:03done. It is worse than a plot, for no one had to arrange it. There is a steady trade in

12:09the traps and

12:10the baits and the poisons bought again and again to fight a thing that never ends. And none at all

12:17in

12:17teaching folk that a day spent packing the gaps with metal and clearing the food ends the trouble for

12:23good and sells nobody a thing. So the plain old knowing of how a rat gets in and how to

12:31shut it

12:31out just quietly stopped being handed down because no one profits by your sealing your own house once

12:38and never buying a bait again. My grandmother's people sealed their granary and their house tight

12:44and kept their food in tight bins and were not overrun. And somewhere between their day and ours,

12:51we were taught to buy the trap and the poison and fight the symptom forever. The mending of it is

12:58a

12:58day's work and no poison at all. You read the sign, the droppings and the grease smudges low along the

13:05walls to find the doors the rats use. You pack every one of those gaps tight with metal, the steel

13:12wool and

13:12the wire mesh they cannot gnaw, where foam and wood only slow them. You clear the table, your food in

13:19tight

13:20metal and glass, the pet bowl up, the compost closed, the fallen fruit and seed cleared, the drips fixed,

13:27the clutter and weeds and wood pile cleared from your walls. You take the rats already in with a proper

13:34snap trap on their runs, not a poison. And for a bad infestation and for the disease they carry, you

13:41get

13:41proper help and take care. And no more rats come in, because the doors are shut and the table is

13:48bare,

13:48for good, for pennies. That is how it comes home, one sealed gap, one cleared corner at a time, the

13:56keeping

13:57of your own house back in your own hands. So here is what I would ask of you. This week,

14:03do not set a single

14:04trap yet. Instead, take a slow walk around your house, low along the walls inside and out, and find

14:11the sign, the droppings and the grease smudges, and see if they do not lead you to a gap or

14:17two you never

14:18knew was there. And then pack those gaps with steel wool, and come back and tell me in the comments

14:24what

14:24you found and where the rats were getting in. For I do love to hear of a body finding and

14:30shutting the

14:30door they never knew stood open. And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of

14:36your house. For the old houses have the most gaps and settle open the most cracks. And I learn from

14:43every one of you how it goes where you live. And if your own mother or grandmother had a way

14:48of shutting

14:48the rats out that I have not named here, tell me that most of all. For that is how this

14:53goes. We share

14:55what we were given. I read every comment, and I learn from you the way the old women learned from

15:00one another across the fence line, one household and one season at a time. Next time I will show

15:06you the old ways of keeping the barn and the outbuildings and the granary sealed against the

15:11rats and the mice, the way the old farm families kept a whole winter stored grain safe from them,

15:17with tight bins and metal and stone, so that between the house sealed and the store sealed,

15:22you keep the rats out of the whole of your place. There is a right and an old way to

15:27keep a household

15:28and a homestead free of the rats that runs on a sealed house and a bare table, rather than a

15:34lifetime of traps and poisons. But this week, you start with the doors. You find them by the sign,

15:40you pack them shut with metal, and you clear the food and the water and the shelter, and you take

15:45the ones inside with a snap trap, not a poison. And you will understand, as my grandmother did,

15:51that you do not sweep the water while the roof still leaks, but go and mend the hole, that the

15:57rats you see are only the symptom of a house left open and worth entering, and that a rat comes

16:03through

16:03a gap the size of a coin, so the whole cure is to shut the coins and leave them nothing.

16:09The household

16:10kept the plain old way is the one that remembers how the old families sealed their house tight against

16:15the rats and kept a bare table for them, and so were not overrun and needed no poison. And that

16:22is a

16:22thing we are only just starting to remember.

Seal Rat Gaps With Steel Wool: Homemade Rat Control Without Poison

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