...total BS, right? Folks in my neighborhood are advising to use them and I'm 99.99% sure it doesn't work but don't want to tell them they're morons on the off chance I'm wrong.

I guess they could keep mice, rats, frogs, toads, and lizards away which in turn would mean no food to attract snakes but even then I'm suspect.

I think myth busters did this one. It was a fail I think.

IIRC, they work, kinda. For a very short period, and only if you throw down so many that it looks like snow.

They keep out mice, and with no mice the snakes have no incentive to hang around

powerbelly51 said:

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They keep out mice, and with no mice the snakes have no incentive to hang around

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This. Keep their food away and places for them to hide to keep them away.

They are also poisoning any critter that ingests the naphthalene as well. Bad idea IMO.

I killed a copperhead a couple of months ago that was underneath a porch curled up on a pack of mothballs ...

At my lease in Childress one of the other guys was terrified of all snakes. He brought one of those containers of snake repellent every time he came out and sprinkled it all under his RV and by where he always parked his hunting truck. That stuff looked like cat litter but smelled exactly like mothballs to me. On 2 or 3 occasions minutes after he spread the stuff around snakes came out from under his RV. Rat snake, coach whip, etc. Never anything poisonous. Could probably had same results if he sprayed gasoline in the same spots.

Several years ago I was sitting in a lawn chair in my front yard after mowing. I watched a copperhead slither right over my mothball barrier I had at the edge of my property line.

I've used sulfur dust and it works for me. That snake-away crap is a waste of money.