moles, how do you get rid of them?

njk0327

We have a small garden and lived here for 8 years and never had a problem all of a sudden we have loads of mole hills in a tiny garden and it's recking my partners pride and joy. The very small lawn which is now totally dug up!
May have something to do with 3 fields(or previously fields!) have now been built on and we have hardly any green space left in our area.
I've searched the internet for solutions but they all say they are unproven and they all cost!
I don't mind spending a small amount but wanting to become debt free every penny counts!
Has anyone had any experience with moles and how to get rid of them?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Lou.

noonesperfect

A friend of mine said that she weed in a bucket and poured it down the mole hole - they didn't come back!
It's worth a try and it won't cost owt....

SKIPPY54

Hi,Try sticking childrens windmills in the ground,the ones you get free from moterway services,the noise is suposed to drive them away.There has been a thread on here before about the same thing,it may be worth a look to see if it is still around.I did say the same thing then but there were other answers.
good luck.

mademoiselle_2

Lou, I think you should just be patient, moles are peripatetic and they will move on, chasing the earthworms and bugs that they feed on. They are not baddies.. they eat many pests and are in many other respects environmentally friendly.

I know it must be annoying that their molehills appear in your garden, but it's only earth...they can be tamped down, and you can't be losing any more plants than you normally would to other pests, slugs, disease, frost etc.

These gorgeous creatures are already under threat with numbers that have declined severely in recent years. Probably, as OP says, because so much of their habitat is disappearing under concrete sprawl/development. Not to mention all the ghastly pesticides that we pollute the water table with.

To me, it's a crime that it's still legal for people to advertise that they will destroy moles, by gassing or poisoning or digging them out and bludgeoning them... I implore you not to take that route. They are gentle creatures who do little lasting harm.

I have had moles in my garden too, they left molehills in my lawn and borders. You know what I did? I simply tamped down the earth and waited for nature to take its course. The moles moved on, the grass grew over the bare patch, the border got re-stocked.

njk0327

No offense to the last post we have spent around a hundred pound a year getting the garden how we wanted it since we moved in!
It has been a labor of love for my partner to turn a waste land littered with every kind of rubbish you could imagine, we have dug up toasters, mixers, drills, pots, pans and every thing you could ever imagine not to be in a small space, destroyed an 8 foot deep concrete filled hole, etc...
To be told now after trying so hard to get a very nice flat 10 ft by 15 ft lawn to get dug up buy 18 mole hills in 2 days, we have to be patient , well we have been!
We have no intention of bludgeoning or killing off anything but to be fair we would like are garden back !
and yes it has caused alot of damage!
so any more advice on a deterant would be gratefully received.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Sorry, if the moles like it, they are here for as long as they want...unless you massacre either them or every bit of wildlife they could possibly eat, which you're obviously too nice to do.

I'd look into using the lovely sandy soil they produce if I were you - I grew up with my mum feeding 5 kids from a veggie patch made out of thick London Clay - I can still remember how she had to be helped into the house by my big brothers because she got so exhausted trying to deal with it.

I sympathise, but I think that, with nature, sometimes it is best to bend with the knocks and hope to turn them into an unexpected advantage rather than try and remain unvielding.

boombap

Hi,

Just 'bumping' this thread as we've got the same mole problem and wondering if anyone can advise any further?

Thanks

Squee

mardatha

Here they say

mardatha

Here they say use milk bottles -empty- half buried in the ground, and the wind whistling over the tops is supposed to annoy them to hell and they move away. I had one once and we did this and it left -- but maybe it was just passing anyway

boombap

Thanks for that - all good info.

The current mole which we have which is causing the problems is a junior one. Strangely we saw it scurrying across the lawn before we had any signs of mole hills. Unfortunately it ran into a flower bed before it could be caught.

Since then it has dug 'trenches' rather than the usual mole hill and that is meant to be something the younger ones do rather than adult moles.

Thanks again for your help

Squee

mardatha

So he's looking for a territory then. Best not make things too comfy for him or he will settle in and then send for the wife & kids !