[Closed] Help me de-mole-ify my lawn

The easiest (though possibly not the best lol) is to stick a pipe in the hole from a propane canister and fill with gas. Then ignite. Here is a demonstration film of a successful mole eviction...

PS Please don't do this 🙂

More helpfully, I just employ the local pest control man to do it for me. But then I have hundreds of them

Frozen sausages?

🙂 Genius.

Frozen sausages?

Mr Mole would probably think it was an Iceland delivery of worms.

(If you want to kill it I would strongly recommend a Talpex trap - not a copy. Locate a run, make opening in it, put the trap in and back fill with soil. Mole thinks the run has collapsed and goes pushing in triggering the trap that's powerful enough to go through the backfilled soil and get the mole.)

£20 a mole is the going rate around local farms, I believe

£20 a mole is the going rate around local farms, I believe

Our local mole man hangs them on the farmer's fences when done - can't decide whether its the bill, or his business card looking for future business, or a bit of both.

It doesn't sound like IHN wants to kill them.

Moles are ace I'd love one to turn my soil for me.

back in the distant past, a mates grandad used to sit on his decking with a beer and watch them come up in the lawn, then shoot them with his shotgun.

3x2 concrete slabs buried into your perimeter, I’m fairly sure they aren’t more than 3ft deep tunnellers.

Hopefully you don’t trap him in your garden…………..

Get an expert in? I was told you need to bury a mole trap for month(s) to clear the human smell, otherwise the moles will go no where near it.

yetidave
back in the distant past, a mates grandad used to sit on his decking with a beer and watch them come up in the lawn, then shoot them with his shotgun.

I'm sure if you ask, Brant will pop round and collect so he can turn them into trousers.

I used those ultrasonic scarers for one last year. Was sceptical, but it cleared off after about a week or so. I now keep two of them running at the bottom of the garden where the mole first go in and they seem to have kept the problem at bay. Fingers crossed.

Moles are ace I’d love one to turn my soil for me.

That's what worms are for - the moles just eat them which is why they are so bad - oh yeah and they **** up the lawn/grass.

I was told you need to bury a mole trap for month(s) to clear the human smell,

Possibly true which is why the Talpex traps are so good (because they're buried in soil so they are much less likely to be detected). When I got my first one I immediately put it into a run and had the mole within half an hour!

then shoot them with his shotgun.

I've done this one also!

It doesn’t sound like IHN wants to kill them.

Correct, I don't. And I reckon it's a single mole (they're solitary, with realtively big territories apparently)

I used those ultrasonic scarers for one last year. Was sceptical, but it cleared off after about a week or so.

Ah, cool, I was looking at those. Do you know which ones you use? I know where it's getting in off the field behind, so if I can encourage it away it should be pretty easy to keep it out if they do work

That’s what worms are for – the moles just eat them which is why they are so bad – oh yeah and they **** up the lawn/grass.

Did you get that out of the big book of outofdate gardening you keep next to your creosote and insecticides?

They do mess up a lawn I will grant you but lawns are for the vain, a grass monoculture devoid of wildlife or interest. Grass, sedge, daisy and clover and the odd mole hill... Perfect.

Our local mole man hangs them on the farmer’s fences when done – can’t decide whether its the bill, or his business card looking for future business, or a bit of both.

Came across these chaps in Dentdale IIRC

[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/55/133740429_1d803568b1.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/55/133740429_1d803568b1.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/cPsnt ]Mole catcher![/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Move to Ireland

next to your creosote

Used to love the smell. When I was a kid, had a neighbour who would creosote his fences every year...

the odd mole hill… Perfect.

The odd mole hill would be fine. However, I dug up 10-15 of them on Saturday, in a patch of lawn that's about the size of two standard parking spaces.

You're going to have to go in after him. Dagger clenched in your teeth

, I dug up 10-15 of them on Saturday, in a patch of lawn t

so what you're saying is you're not making a mountain out of this?

Came across these chaps in Dentdale IIRC

You still see gibbets all round the dales. I think they're meant to be proof by the molecatcher work's been done, and as a cheery advert to encourage neighbours to get their land done. They do look a bit pagan sacrifice.

Did you get that out of the big book of outofdate gardening you keep next to your creosote and insecticides?

.... wow.

Grass, sedge, daisy and clover

You do know that you've just described 99% of every lawn in the UK?
And before you reply you should know that, apart from a lawn that I keep tidy [shock horror], I also have 2 acres of natural paddock that just has a path cut through it for walking the dogs - other than that it's left to it's own devices and is full of insects, flowers and wildlife.

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Next clever comment?

Popular wisdom suggests that you should buy yourself a large comedy mallet, and run around bopping them on the head when they surface from the mole hills.

back in the distant past, a mates grandad used to sit on his decking with a beer and watch them come up in the lawn, then shoot them with his shotgun.

Was he Jasper Carrott?

However, I dug up 10-15 of them on Saturday

Before: 10-15 small piles of earth.
After: 10-15 large piles of earth.

Have you ever read Fantastic Mr Fox? Careful with this, you're fast heading down the rabbit fox mole hole.

If you do go down the route of using humane traps*, don't leave them in over the weekend or while you're away, small creatures and will dehydrate and die quickly if you don't rescue them.

*and you should because frankly, a lawn isn't worth killing another living thing over, it's as much Mr and Mrs Moles home as it is yours.

Next clever comment?

And yet you think moles are a negative. They eat loads of nasty grubs and insects.

Before: 10-15 small piles of earth.
After: 10-15 large piles of earth.

I suppose I should have been more specific - I removed the piles of soil from the lawn, there's now one big pile of soil in one corner of the garden.

Well, that and three fresh molehills in the lawn since Sunday...

*and you should because frankly, a lawn isn’t worth killing another living thing over

Again, I've got no desire to kill the mole.

Trouble with humane traps ( a bit of a misnomer anyway) is what do you do with the mole after you catch it?

@IHN these were the ones:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08HCTJ8Q4/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

out of stock, but i reckon you can find them elsewhere. Bought two, stuck them next to the molehills and worked a treat!

tjagain wrote:

Trouble with humane traps ( a bit of a misnomer anyway) is what do you do with the mole after you catch it?

dig a hole and bury the bugger!

Trouble with humane traps ( a bit of a misnomer anyway) is what do you do with the mole after you catch it?

Walk across the road, the to the far side of the huge field over there, then release the mole.

Away from his family and friends? Poor little chap.  he will just come back home won't he?

he will probably get Badger and Ratty to come over and sort you out for that

This thread could become a mountain

Driveby from toads car if things get serious.

Whatever course of action you take, it's vital you get rid of them - I have it on good authority they all work for foreign intelligence agencies.

Don’t remove the soil, just rake it out

Wait for a hard frost at voila, top soil frisbee! (I actually do this in the colder months, makes removing the soil a doddle)

I started my career with a major international chemical company ICI which no longer exists. I had a colleague, Bernard, who was at the top of the scientific career ladder and lived out in the countryside. Bernard's next door neighbour had a problem with moles ruining his lawn and thought "Bernard works for ICI he'll be able to come up with something nasty to get rid of them". He explained his problem to Bernard who tapped the side of his nose and said "leave it to me". Next morning Bernard's neighbour looked out of his bedroom window and saw on each mole hill there was a cocktail stick with a piece of paper on it. Thinking "this looks marvellous what's Bernard come up with?" he hurried downstairs and out to his lawn whereupon he discovered that on each cocktail stick flag Bernard had written "Moles go away!" Did I say Bernard was slightly eccentric.

Whatever course of action you take, it’s vital you get rid of them – I have it on good authority they all work for foreign intelligence agencies.

Interestingly the French word for Mole is Taupe which has the same dual meaning in French.

Don’t remove the soil, just rake it out

There's too much to do that, even raking out what's left after I've removed the bulk of it leaves a lot in/on the lawn.

I've just ordered some of the repeller things, we'll see how they go. And I may get a couple of decorative windspinner-type things too, the noise/vibration from those is supposed to work well.

Walk across the road, the to the far side of the huge field over there, then release the mole.

If that field belongs to a farmer (or someone who doesn't want moles) i'd have thought that was not allowed...

If that field belongs to a farmer (or someone who doesn’t want moles) i’d have thought that was not allowed…

Said, rough, unmaintained field is used for grazing horses, and the deer that wander into it reasonably regularly. It is, quite literally, 'just a field'.

still seeing those ads from lovehoney?

Is that a cobra pictured at the bottom of that box?

Yikes!

We had a mole down the bottom of the garden, it'd previously been in next doors garden. We seemed to move it on by sticking several of those Childs windmills (you know the ones, every seaside shop in the world sells them) into the area. Seemingly when they spin it creates a vibration through the soil that Moley doesn't like.
I realise that..
A.This sounds like a wind up
B.Has no chance of working
C.Really sounds like a wind up

However the mole hills disappeared a few weeks after the windmill installation. I have no idea if we had a transient mole or whether they were really driven off by our wind powered solution but the mole hills stopped appearing.

Said, rough, unmaintained field is used for grazing horses

Horses break their legs when mole tunnels collapse. The guy who grazes horses in the filed behind me seems to be engaged in eternal warfare against moles for this reason.

Is IHN Toad?  Or one of the weasels?  I think we should be told

Seemingly when they spin it creates a vibration through the soil that Moley doesn’t like.

Yep, this seems to be a common theme in anti-mole devices, and it's basically what the solar ones do. This is one of the reasons why I'm thinking of getting some 'actual' wind-spinner things and artfully distributing them around the garden.

Is that a cobra pictured at the bottom of that box?

Yikes!

Apparently, nests of vipers are quite common in the Cotswolds, and once they are established they are very difficult to remove.

That video is great! I know a guy who used to whack them with a spade when they came up but he must've sat around for a while, watching. The traps are quite effective, if set finely.

Moletraps are cheap and available in a few places. catching moles in those traps is a very skilled job however and likely a frustrating/futile task for an unskilled/experienced person.
The hole is dug open revealing the tunnel, trap placed and lined up before being covered. The skill is in setting the correct depth, alignment and covering gently so not to collapse around the tunnel but totally so no light or draught gets in.
Its a learned skill and best left to a pro Pest controller.
Oh, and "humane" refers to a sharp, quick kill. Not letting them go again.

catching moles in those traps is a very skilled job however and likely a frustrating/futile task for an unskilled/experienced person.

You're wrong there. It's a simple task with success directly in proportion to the number of trap used. I've a bucket full of them and I never fail to catch the bloody things.

BTW I don't like killing them, but they've been told to stay in the veg patch and the wild corner of the garden. I can only conclude that they are blind and deaf.

they seem to stay in the field behind my garden rather than come into the garden but my cat seems to be quite a good mole catcher, had 2 dead ones brought into the house recently.
probably why it spends so long outside, sitting waiting for them to surface.

Jasper Carrott has the answer.....

You’re going to have to go in after him. Dagger clenched in your teeth

I think this idea had potential.....

Traps work well. As a primary school aged kid I followed in my dads foots steps. Sit out on the field with the 12 bore. When the soil moves give it a few seconds then give it one! Best done on warm summer evenings with the promise of a swig of the home brew. 1 swig for sitting. 1 for a body. I didn't get pissed but it did give me taste for his foul brew. Only the other day I caught him trying the same trick with the moderated .410 . No idea what my mother had bribed/threatened him with but at 86 he takes his pleasure where he can.

Move to Ireland

I think I got this 🙂

But now I'm not so sure...

Thinking “this looks marvellous what’s Bernard come up with?” he hurried downstairs and out to his lawn whereupon he discovered that on each cocktail stick flag Bernard had written “Moles go away!”

Clearly a stupid idea. Moles have notoriously poor vision.

Jasper Carrott has the answer…..

I alluded to this earlier and got no takers. Cheers for the link, I couldn't be bothered to search for it.

I alluded to this earlier and got no takers. Cheers for the link, I couldn’t be bothered to search for it.

It was my very first thought on reading the thread title! I couldn’t be arsed to go looking either.

And I may get a couple of decorative windspinner-type things too, the noise/vibration from those is supposed to work well.

First gust of wind and my bloody fence blew down......