This is the kind of East Nashville story that sounds tiny until it becomes every block's business. A Facebook group thread started with a neighbor frustrated by mothballs placed outdoors along a fence line after a snake sighting. The comments did the normal loop: jokes, exasperation, talk to them first, report it if needed.
The useful answer is not gossip. It is the part people can actually use without dragging a private block into public view: mothballs are pesticide products with label rules, and outdoor fence lines are not what they are for.
EPA's pesticide-labeling Q&A is unusually direct on this exact scenario. The agency says applying mothballs along a fence line is outside the labeled use site because registered mothball products specify airtight containers and storage closets. EPA's consumer guidance also flags mothballs as a common illegal-pesticide issue and warns that they can be hazardous, especially around young children.
So the practical East Nashville version is simple. If you are the person tempted to scatter them outside, do not. If you are the neighbor smelling them, talk first if that is safe and realistic. If the problem continues or feels like a public-health/property-standard issue, document the condition without posting names, faces, exact addresses, or accusation screenshots, then send it through hubNashville or Metro Codes.
For the snake anxiety underneath the whole thing, TWRA's snake guidance is a better starting place than folk chemistry. Most neighborhood snake panic is really habitat, food source, and surprise management. A line of mothballs does not turn a fence into a force field; it mostly turns a neighbor dispute into a label problem.
Our ruling: this is exactly why the group chat is useful as a signal, not a source to quote raw. The thread surfaced a real micro-problem. The article's job is to strip out the private details, attach the official answer, and give readers the next step before everyone starts litigating a fence line in the comments.