Who? You might ponder? My UPSTAIRS NEIGHBOR'S MOTHER, that's who. But she doesn't use them in airtight containers to kill larval moths that might be munching through her cashmere, which I suppose would be a perfectly acceptable use for known carcinogens, nooo, our neighbor's fucking mother was using mothballs to KILL SQUIRRELS.
That's right. She put mothball flakes in a trail all along the outer edge of their porch, "because the squirrels won't leave our deck furniture alone."
Of course, their porch is directly above our kitchen, and when the mothball flakes fell, they came right down onto the basil plants we had in our open window. But worse than that, was the sudden and horrifying smell that permeated our house gave both of us headaches. And, oh yeah, by the way, we have a 6 month old baby. Who does stuff like that, really?!
When I accosted her, she said the City told her to use mothballs to deter the squirrels. What??? Her poor daughter, who is very nice, and who makes exquisite baklava and has an adorable smile and a bumper sticker on her blue VW Bug that reads "Support Organic Farmers" was of course, mortified when we knocked on her door.
I printed out information about how toxic mothball fumes can be and couldn't help shoving them into her hands, despite the fact that she was already groveling with apologies. "If I don't keep an eye on her, I have know idea what she'll do next," she said, eyes rolling. "I'm sooo sorry! I would never put chemicals like that into the earth."
Can I just say that her mother DOESN'T EVEN LIVE HERE DAMN IT! But she's here all the time, arriving with carloads of stuff, and moving furniture around in the middle of the night. And, worst of all people, she listened to Vanilla Ice ON REPEAT at 3 am. For an hour. I hate this lady.