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Moles!!!


jandv

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We have just moved to a property that has land that is simply inundated with moles.  I have seen various control methods in the shops here including some kind of gun with cartridges.  That is quite expensive and surmising that because of that it might work.  I have not seen any reference to such a sytem on UK sites, only sonic repelents, traps that may or may not be very successful, etc.

Does anyone have any good practical and most importantly, successfull,experiences of getting rid (not just moving them away temporarily) of the little beggers.

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If you visit the Mairie, they usually have a chap who will come round and deal with them.They seem to do a commune at a time;not the moles. Having tried various methods I found that a thin tube stuck in the earth mounds with an empty plastic bottle ,inverted, on the tube, does the trick, especially if it's windy.

Regards.

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I use a device made by eradic called a detauper . should be www.detauper.com but I can't get it to work at present. The devices can be bought from bricos and some garden places. They kill the moles by the pressure blast of an explosion I think as those dug up have been whole. They are the only thing that I found that actually work. I haven't tried traps although I am sure that they work as well.
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Hi  jandv,

Welcome to France and the Mole problem,

We,re having the same trouble and Ive a large garden (1)  1part veg/fruit (2) the second lawn borders etc,

Im trying 3 things (1) the chemicle bullet trap I bought from the local France rural store, "it,s made in the U.K. believe it or not,

all the instructions are in english,

Now as with all the methods used you must wear rubber gloves to stop the human smell being left on the device you use,

So wipe clean your device and make sure you have not left your scent on the trap.

this first trap has gone off twice and Ive not found any dead moles, but as its a gasing sort of thing and Moles move fast, Im hoping they,ve died deep down.

 

The second device Im trying thanks to my  friend down the lane who has no mole hills, is the bullet trap that fire when the device is tripped,

(if you use this method cover the set trap with a plastic bucket to warn off dogs etc,  So far Ive killed one mole using this method.

 

And last  but the best Ibought from the local jardiland, and its a solar operated spike device that charges its self up via the sun,

every 15 seconds it lets a bleeping sound out and this keeps the moles away,

Ive used this for 2 weeks now and my veg area is clear of any moles, but the orchard 20 feet away has signs of moles.

but Ive not done anything about this area "YET"

The advantage of the solar system is it,s clean and can be moved when mowing /digging etc,

And as we,re surrounded by miles and miles of Field, we dont expect to see the Mole off by any means.

 

Hope this has given you some sort of real advice, we have been told to use moth balls down the mole holes, get an old moped attach a hose pipe to the exhaust and start the engine and rev like hell and gas them,

So my friend your not alone, (theres always a Mole about)

Good gardening.

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They have been annoying me too this year. They just love coming up in the middle of the veggie patch! I don't have the heart to kill them though. I think next year i will just make my plot a bit bigger and expect some things to get disturbed by them. It just seems like an impossible battle to win, so I'm not even going to try, especially as they are in the adjoining fields so they would just come back! (Although if anyone comes up with a dead cert, i may be tempted.........)

Also if you scrape up the earth on top of the mole hills, it is lovely stuff to go on seed beds etc.

Louise

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I have been here five years now, during which time I have used:- kids windmills stuck in the ground, upturned plastic bottles on sticks, sonic devices, prickly bits of holly stuck in their runs, plastic traps and moth balls.  All of those I used in the first 2 or 3 years of being here, none of which worked.  I am told that the noise of a garden tractor cutting the grass will drive them away and I must have driven the equivalent of driving to the South of France and back and they are still here.  For the last couple of years I have realised they have the upper hand and provided they don't mutate and take to coming indoors to sit on my furniture they are welcome to use my garden.  Once you realise these little critters cannot be beaten life gets better.
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Yep, I'm keeping my little mole chums!

I found this on english nature website:

  Ultrasonic deterrents do not scare moles away and neither does the noise made by the wind blowing over the top of a bottle sunk into a mole tunnel – a commonly cited homespun deterrent! The live-trapping and removal of moles is also unlikely to be effective as other moles will probably move into the empty tunnels and may even extend them.

 It is better to live with the problem and remove molehills as they appear, generally in the autumn and winter when it is damp and easy to dig. Why not use the soil for potting plants? Leaving moles undisturbed means that they are less likely to dig new tunnels. Moles can actually

benefit the garden by eating harmful insect larvae like leatherjackets and helping to drain and aerate heavy soils.

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I have a friend in 24 who is a mole catcher/killer.  It's a never ending job for him (he's quite obsessive about the little buggers) and works for people right across our area.

His view is that trapping is the only effective method, once you have them they're difficult but not impossible to get rid of it just takes patience and that the only good mole is a dead mole.  Find where they store their food and trap them there is the best way according to him. 

To me (I had a few (the mole man thinks just two, the tunnels he thinks in the garden but they seem to have toddled off) so long as they don't get me veggies, that's fine with me, if they pop up[ in the veggie patch, great for potting or seed compost, they're not doing me any hard, ok, it's not very esthaetically pleasing but I live in rural France so I'm not looking for pristine Surrey/Home Counties lawns.  And after the hot weather, why worry about grass anyway, needs reseeding.

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I purchased several of the "vibrating spikes" from a brico last year. Not "ultrasonic" but randomly every 20 secs of so the emit a vibrating noise. The good thing about them is that they are cheap. thus, as they had no effect at all I do not feel too "ripped-off". Had I spent a load of money (e.g. got the solar powered ones that are a lot more expensive) then I would have felt quite anoyed.

The vibrations are meant to sound like their predators digging- which upsets the moles and they move off. Trouble is the theory does not work in practice.

I don't like the idea of the sprung traps too much as One of my dogs is obsessed with mole hills (my fault as she loves it as I kick the soil around the area). Other dog has learnt that he can distribute the soil. whilst I could cover the traps (e.g. bucket), should anything go wrong it would be too much of a risk to the dogs.

Ian
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We have also just moved to a house with a garden which is full of moles.  We've been out and bought a couple of those sonic devices that emit a beep and for two weeks now have had just as many mole hills as ever.  They even come up right next to the the devices, so in my opinion a total waste of money.  I think we will just have to learn to live with the little b...ers and do as suggested on here, use the soil for potting up cuttings!
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  • 2 weeks later...

The garden of our last house in Norfolk was next to a cemetery...and also surrounded by fields so we had a really bad problem with moles.I had a yearly contract with a mole catcher who was very good and used to drop drugged worms into their burrows...this worked extremely well...but as his prices went sky high I couldn't renew the contract....so I found other ways to catch the little men in velvet coats.

Some times in the spring they'd burrow just beneath the surface of the lawn...and I'd watch the movement in the grass...and at just the right moment...deftly plunge my hand fork into the grass under their bodies...and flick them up out of their shallow burrows...I'd then quickly put them into a bucket of soil...and set them free on some waste ground several fields away...(I have since found out that this is actually illegal as they're classed as vermin and should be killed.)

I tried the sonic mole scarers to no avail...and moth balls...kiddies windmills...cats poo...and flooding their burrows with a hose...which only made them go deeper for a while and then come back as the earth worms were drawn to the moist earth...I also tried flooding their burrows and then putting a little petrol down...hoping that the fumes would drive them away...but nothing worked.

If I couldn't catch them and set them free...and they were really messing up the lawn...I had to resort to traps...which were very successful...but they were clever little creatures and often either set them off and scarpered...or simply filled them with earth...you can't help admiring them...and let's be honest they were digging up the land and just being moles...long before we decided that we wanted to make gardens and veggie plots...on their land.

Bon journee'

Effie

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The only way we have found is to use the wire traps. Not very pleasant but it does work. Eventually new moles will arrive to re-colonise the tunnels and I have to start again but by being persistent over a number of years I've only had one lot try to move in this year. Set the traps as soon as there is any evidence of activity - I tend to set 5 or 6 around the area. I keep the traps in a large flower pot outside so they don't pick up any human odours and wear gloves to handle them.

 

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We tried some 'anti mole bulbs'. They arrived by mail order and were, in fact, small aliums. Planted strategically they have kept us mole free for 2 years whilst our neighbours have been plagued!

This week a mole has returned so, maybe the bulbs have lost ther pungent smell/ effectiveness.

I plan to plant more...

abi

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