I store my bird seed in the basement in tubs like Rubbermaid and a seal tight one for the peanuts. Then I have smaller cereal-sized containers that I have upstairs to easily fill the feeders. I haven't had any issues with critters inside the house, it's just a royal pain to lug the bags of it downstairs. But it's better than trying to store it in the garage.
I have seen a squirrel chewing on the 1" diameter plastic hinge at the back of the garbage bins, but so far, none have actually chewed through the lids and didn't do much damage to the hinge, just a few tooth scrapes. And the lids are quite flimsy, they really wouldn't have any problem chewing through most any part of these trash bins.
I put the red pepper powder on the bricks but then felt bad when a squirrel ran through the pepper.
So I wiped that off and just let quite a bit of the peppermint oil soak into the top of the 2 bricks.
