How to reliably get rid of moles in a summer cottage or garden

In many cases, getting rid of moles in a summer cottage is possible with quite simple means, inexpensive and affordable for every summer resident. However, this does not always happen this way - the same tool in some areas can give excellent results (say, carbide or rotten fish buried in the ground), while in others it turns out to be absolutely useless.

And, one wonders, what should be done if the moles on the site do not seem to react at all to attempts to scare them away, while continuing their active wrecking activity? The most common approach of gardeners in this case is the continuation of unsystematic and erratic attempts to fight moles, in the hope that some tool will finally work. As a result, it comes to the fact that urine is poured into moleholes, cat and even human excrement is buried, somewhere here traps or hand made traps from fishing hooks stand.

Feedback:

“For two months now, I have been fighting moles in my country house. I hung out beer cans all over the site, poured water into burrows, shoved the heads of herring, but nothing helps. Moles both dug and dig, heaps throughout the country. I don’t know what to do, I don’t have the strength ... "

Oksana, St. Petersburg

An alternative is to take into account the feedback and experience of a large number of gardeners who have already got rid of moles in the garden. Based on this experience, a consistent technique has been formed that allows you to quickly, efficiently and with minimal effort to achieve the desired result.

In accordance with this technique, a combination of deterrents is first used against moles in a summer cottage or garden plot, first simple ones, and if this does not help, then more complex (expensive) ones. And if this does not give a result, then effective physical methods of struggle are additionally applied.

So, so that the measures taken to get rid of moles have an effect, we proceed in steps ...

We find out how many moles live on the site and where they live

This stage is quite important, since there are cases when a gardener, after a long hunt, managed to finally get rid of one mole, he relaxed, thinking that the struggle was over, and then he was surprised to find that the problem had not disappeared.

In general, in small household plots - up to 20 acres - cases of the simultaneous settlement of several adult moles are quite rare.

On a note

Moles are very jealous of the protection of their territory, and usually do not let outsiders into it. Moreover, in the defense of their hunting estates between moles, serious skirmishes are possible in which one of the individuals sometimes dies or gets injured.

As a rule, several animals require a fairly large area (about a hectare) for sufficient nutrition, in which they can lead a normal life without meeting each other.

In rare cases, a garden plot can be located at the junction of the territories of two moles, and they can "manage" here at the same time, spending most of their life outside the garden.

On a note

The area of the hunting area of one mole averages 600-1000 square meters, and therefore several moles may well get along in one large garden.

The number of moles in the country is determined by the fragmentation of molehills, that is, by the location of soil emissions on the site. Tentatively, it can be considered that such heaps of land located along a clearly visible line and located at a distance of up to 20-30 meters from each other, are made by the same animal.

If on the site two or more separate groups of such molehills are clearly visible, spaced a considerable distance (more than 30 meters), then we can conclude that different animals made them with high probability. So, there are several moles here, and this will need to be taken into account in the future when getting rid of them.

On a note

If the female mole lives on the site, then in June-July up to 5-6 young animals can be present here - her offspring, which by the end of June will begin to disperse into the adjacent territories. Prior to this, they use the maternal system of underground passages, without creating new emissions of land on the surface.

If you want to get rid of moles forever or, at least for a long time, then the above point is also important to consider: there are cases when traps in the country from one turn in a short period of time caught up to 6 moles. This is exactly the situation when all the caught animals are cubs of one female. If in this case you catch only one animal and calm down, then all the other moles will remain on the site for some time, and one of them will most likely winter here, and in the next year will show its full potential.

So, suppose you tentatively calculated how many moles live in your summer cottage, and roughly estimated your favorite places to move them. We begin to get rid of pests ...

We use deterrents

Simple deterrents in some cases work very well and allow you to get rid of moles in a summer cottage in just a few days. In other cases, repellers do not have a sufficient effect on animals, however, you need to try these agents, at least as a simple experiment (many antagonistic agents are inexpensive, or even completely free, and, importantly, their use does not require significant costs time and effort).

At the heart of the means of repelling moles is exposure, either with the help of sounds or with the help of smells, since it is hearing and smell in these animals that are very well developed. At the same time, you can’t say in advance what works best - a sound or aromatic effect, so both options are worth a try.

On a note

As practice shows, getting rid of a mole in a personal plot in many cases is possible already at the stage of applying a combination of repellents, using both noise repellents and aromatic ones (and this is just about combining, and not about sequential testing).

We scare away moles with homemade sound repellers

There are many options for homemade sound repellers, which in many cases really help get rid of moles.

Here are just some of the most popular designs:

Turntables (noisers) made of plastic bottles or cans and mounted on metal poles or pipes dug into the ground. Rotating in the wind, they knock on metal, through which sound is transmitted to the soil, frightening moles. The photo below shows examples of such turntables;
Weathercocks working on the same principle, but more difficult to manufacture;
The reed stalks are buzzing in the wind;
Chinese battery powered alarms. They are placed in glass jars, which, in turn, are buried in the ground. At the same time, different alarms are set at different times;
Glass bottles that are buried in the ground at about an angle of 45 degrees at 2/3 of the height, leaving an open neck outside. The wind, blowing into an empty bottle, creates a rumble that can also scare off moles;
And even simple plastic bottles closed with a lid, which are placed in abundance on a summer cottage, sometimes lying right on the ground. Due to temperature changes at night and during the day, the air in the bottles shrinks and expands, as a result of which the bottles crackle, frightening moles.

Such tools are installed in close proximity to the estimated mole moves (they are often clearly visible between the mole heaps, since they are located close to the surface of the earth and give themselves out as a slightly raised topsoil).

The more such repellers will be in the country (within reasonable limits), the higher will be the chance to get rid of moles. It is preferable to simultaneously use at the summer cottage facilities of different designs, so that the noises are different in frequency and duration, and moles could not quickly get used to them. Nevertheless, do not forget about aesthetics, so that when getting rid of moles, the site does not turn into a landfill.

It is also useful to read: Effective traps for catching moles in the area

It is interesting

To quickly get rid of moles, some summer residents recommend regularly turning on loud music on the site. Moreover, according to reviews, hard rock works best in this regard. There are also known cases when moles left the site with frequent work on a lawn mower or walk-behind tractor, although such precedents are rare.

The most odious wrestlers with moles explode firecrackers in the underground passages, previously covering the excavated passage with a bucket or pan. It is unlikely that this method of struggle can be considered humane, since it is highly likely that a mole will be concussed, after which it will die a painful starvation (due to a quick metabolism without food, the animal will die within 24 hours).

You can understand that the scarers worked, due to the long absence of new mole heaps in the area. The important thing is the long absence of fresh emissions of the earth, since the animal may not make them if the already created moves in the garden are enough for him to collect enough feed.

We use electronic devices

The use of industrially produced electronic mole repellers is a simpler and in most cases more effective way to get rid of pests on the site than using homemade products. However, the use of such devices already requires certain financial costs (the cost of devices in stores, depending on the quality and principle of operation, ranges from 800-5000 rubles).

The greatest efficiency when scaring moles is shown by devices that generate not only sound, but also vibration, and in random mode - with changing frequency, duration and frequency of sound (an example of such a device is, for example, the Ecosniper LS-997MR mole repeller; the letter M in the name indicates the presence of a motor in the device that produces vibration, and R indicates operation in "random" mode, that is, with randomly switched on switching intervals and sound duration and vibration).

On a note

Such mole repellers in the form of columns buried in the ground are often mistakenly called ultrasonic, although they do not produce any ultrasound, generating sound signals in an audible frequency range. In this case, the optimum sound frequency for scaring moles is considered to be 300-400 Hz.

Ultrasound corresponds to an oscillation frequency above 20,000 Hz.

When buying this or that repeller, one should bear in mind that the price more or less reflects the quality of the device: for example, Chinese mole repellers for 600-800 rubles often can not stand one rain, or the battery charge from the solar battery lasts only a couple of hours of work in Night time. It is clear that getting rid of moles in a summer cottage with the help of such devices will be very problematic.

The photo below shows several examples of sound mole repellers that run on batteries (usually one set of batteries lasts for 3-6 months):

And these photos show examples of repellers with solar panels that charge the built-in battery during the day:

Feedback

“We have moles on the site in the summer just freaked out.I bought two scaring pegs, though they are absurd, but they did their job quickly. At first, the moles began to dig less, and soon they completely left. They work fine. ”

Sergey, Moscow

And again, it is impossible to say in advance whether a similar device will help in your case - verification is required. There are many positive reviews, when even one column dug in the site, drove moles out of the garden in just a day. But there are also cases where repeller models considered sufficiently effective did not allow getting rid of moles for the entire season.

Feedback

“Just amazing! A neighbor set up a Tornado repeller, moles fled from him, already sparkled his heels. Heaps of land began to leave the fence, but not a single fresh one was found on its site. He took the Tornado from him, set it up for himself, and the next morning in the same place a heap of land, a repeller dug up, lies nearby, buzzing. How do you understand this? ”

Sergey, from correspondence on the forum

If you decide to try the sound mole repeller in practice on a large plot of land, it is useful to start by restricting yourself to buying 1-2 products. And only when it becomes clear that the device really gives the necessary result and the moles near it significantly reduced their activity (usually within a radius of 15-20 meters), then it makes sense to use the selected model more massively.

We use odorous means

It is not much more difficult to scare away moles with smells than with noises - it’s enough to bury odorous means in the moves of animals, or near them.

Perhaps the easiest and at the same time popular way to get rid of moles with the help of such means is to put rotten fish animals in the passages. In this case, usually proceed as follows:

Any fish is taken, including the most inexpensive (you can use the most popular herring and sprats);
The fish is cut into small pieces (and the same sprat can not be cut at all);
Then the pieces of fish are left for several days outside in a place inaccessible to pets;
When the fish pulls a characteristic choke, a piece of it will need to be laid in the holes dug in the ground in all discovered near-surface mole passages.

People who have been helped by this method to get rid of moles in the country note that pests leave within 3-5 days after the fish is laid out.

In addition, instead of spoiled fish, the following options are sometimes also successfully used to get rid of moles in a summer cottage:

Calcium carbide (technical carbide always contains impurities of phosphide and calcium arsenide, and when interacting with water it releases not only acetylene gas, but also smelling specifically of phosphine and arsine as an impurity);
Technical fluids - kerosene, gasoline, turpentine, solvents (646, etc.);
Acetic acid;
Ammonia;
Tablets from moles Alfos (their active ingredient is aluminum phosphide, which, when exposed to moisture, emits a strongly smelling and highly toxic gas, phosphine);
Feces of domestic animals, as well as human;
Exhaust gas from the car - a hose is put on the exhaust pipe, the end of which is introduced into the hole of the mole, after which the car is started and just wait about 1 hour;
Smoke bombs (sulfur, insecticidal-repellent and even just signal).

More pleasant to use and sometimes show good performance balls from moles Detia with the smell of lavender (a means of German production). If you apply them according to the instructions, burying them on a site in the ground to a depth of 20-30 cm and at a distance of a meter from each other, then you can sometimes get rid of moles quite quickly for the whole season (although not in all cases, however).

What is useful to keep in mind if you suddenly decide to "kidnap" in the country:

Improper handling of calcium carbide can lead to ignition and even a dangerous explosion of the air-acetylene mixture. Therefore, it is not recommended to fill the moles with acetylene, and then try to set fire to it;
Similarly, pouring mole passages with kerosene, gasoline and other flammable liquids can be a fire hazard;
Ammonia (ammonia dissolved in water), with the help of which they sometimes try to scare moles off the site, is very volatile and quickly erodes from the ground, so that its effect will be very short-lived;
Also, chlorine, being a very active substance, decomposes very quickly in the ground, completely losing its repelling activity within a couple of days;
When using smoke bombs, it is useful to keep in mind that sulfur bombs burn only with good air access, so that they will not burn underground and are unlikely to help get rid of moles. But insecticidal smoke bombs (Quiet Evening, City, etc.), as well as signal bombs may well smolder even underground, but when using them you need to be aware that the mole will not crawl out from under the ground to the surface “breathe fresh air”, and with a certain probability, he will simply die right in his moves. That is, this option of getting rid of moles in a summer cottage can hardly be considered humane (as well as the use of car exhaust).

It is also useful to read: Mole net application and reviews on this site protection method

If you use several different methods of scaring away moles at the same time, you can significantly increase your chances of a positive result. Sometimes it is the combination of different options that allows you to get rid of moles, which were not scared away by the same means, but applied separately.

On a note

There is also a method of scaring away moles by various plants that are planted in the country (black beans, imperial hazel grouse, onions, garlic, etc.). However, judging by the reviews, in general, this technique is ineffective.

But suppose you used a combination of deterrents, two weeks passed, and you could not get rid of the moles in the garden or at the cottage. In this case, we move on to the next stage - catching moles in the area ...

We catch moles and take them out of the area

You can catch moles both with the help of hand-made traps, and with devices available on the market.

The “pipe” type trap is most often used as a mole trap, which is installed in the animal’s course: the mole creeps into it, pushing the door forward (the door only opens inward), after which the animal can no longer get out.

The photo below shows an example of a mole head-pipe of industrial production:

And here is a photo of a homemade mole-head pipe:

Such mole traps can also be made with your own hands from ordinary plastic bottles or pieces of plastic water pipes. Although it will be easier for someone to buy a finished product - the price of such traps in stores is about 600-1200 rubles.

Another way to catch a mole is to dig a bucket, pot or plastic bottle into the ground under its course, into which the animal will fall when it passes through its tunnel.

It is advisable to check such traps every 5-6 hours. After capturing the animal, it is necessary to take it 1-1.5 km from the site and release it in the grass or shrub - this way you can get rid of the mole forever, since he will not be able to overcome such a distance and will not come back.

Feedback

“I had garden moles on the plot for three years. I’m tired of fighting them already, in no way did I manage to get rid of them. And they dig all the time, and the flowers spoil, a mess in the garden. Set repellers - it didn’t help, flooded holes, but after a week new heaps. I had to catch traps. I'm afraid of them scary, I can’t take it in my hands, so I carried it out in a trap and let it out in the cemetery. So got rid. I caught two moles, and after that no one was digging in the garden. ”

Oksana, Ryazan

Here are some more popular and fairly simple ways to catch a mole in the country:

Just dig it with a shovel while moving in a near-surface course.At this time, the earth rises a little, the animal is visible, and if you quickly stick a shovel behind it and throw out a lump, then the mole will be on the surface of the earth. The method is complex, it requires strength, speed and, most importantly, time to wait for the animal;
Sometimes moles get rid of traps that kill the animal. These devices are just as effective as live-trap traps, but their use is inhumane. If the animal can be caught alive and taken out of the suburban area without killing, then it is better to prefer a humane option;
Installation of moles with fishing hooks in the mole moves. Someone even recommends hooking earthworms onto hooks. This is a pretty lively way of catching moles, and it can hardly be recommended for use.

In some cases, with the competent use of traps, moles can be eliminated in a summer cottage literally in 1-2 weeks. However, we note once again that the use of traps does not cancel the use of deterrents, since only in this case the risk of new moles arriving at the site will be minimal (in general, driving away moles living in their “native” territory can be more difficult than repelling animals coming from outside and just looking at potential hunting grounds).

We call specialized services

Meanwhile, there are situations when, for some reason, scarers and traps do not help get rid of moles in the country. For example, in very rare cases, pests constantly come from the field adjacent to the site, and the fight against them turns into an endless marathon.

It is also possible that a person simply does not have the time and energy to mess with all of the above means. For example, if the owner wants to quickly sell the land, or we are talking about a realtor who needs to have the territory in perfect commercial form.

In this case, the best option may be to call a special service to combat moles (deratization service). Most companies offering services for the destruction of rodents (rats, mice) also successfully fight moles (which, strictly speaking, are not rodents), and they do this quickly, usually in one day, and almost without effort from the owner of the site.

Feedback

“... Go crazy, then put the rotten fish in the holes, pour kerosene over here. I understand that it’s deeply different for individual characters how their garden plot looks and how it smells. But that's why I decided to get rid of moles, because they spoil all harmony. And now I’ll come to my licked beautiful flower garden, scribble rotten fish, fill with kerosene, and on top with a firecracker babakhna. Well, I do not! She told her husband, he called the guys who for only 3,000 rubles did what we could not achieve for two years. Now there are no moles. ”

Alina, Kaluga

We protect the territory from re-penetration of moles

It is useful to keep in mind that even if you managed to get rid of one mole on your site, then with a high probability its relatives can appear here again and again, coming from the adjacent territories. Accordingly, if you do not take measures to protect the site, then after some time you will have to deal with pests again.

To prevent this, it is necessary to protect the summer cottage from re-penetration of moles:

Perhaps the easiest way is to leave working mole repellers on the site, even if new heaps have not appeared for a long time;
A more effective option (though much more time-consuming and expensive) is to install barriers around the entire perimeter of the site: bury the mesh to a depth of 70-80 cm, or slate or roofing material. You can also dig a trench and cover it with gravel. The method is expensive, and even with the economy option, such a fence will cost at least 500 rubles per meter of the protected boundary of the site;
Installation of a fence with a deep foundation at the border of the site. In fact, this is the same obstacle as in the previous paragraph, only more thorough and expensive;
Laying on a plot of a special lawn net (i.e. horizontally under a layer of earth).

In conclusion, it is worth noting that when combining the methods of sound and chemical repelling moles with capturing them on the site, especially if measures are taken to prevent new pests from entering the site, we can count on a successful outcome in the fight against moles in a relatively short period of time. It is an integrated approach in this matter that is the key to success.

If you have personal experience in fighting moles in the area, be sure to leave your feedback about a particular method at the bottom of this page, sharing your results, regardless of whether they were positive or negative.