7 Mole Removal Methods, Honestly Rated

Nothing is as frustrating as looking out over your lawn and seeing unsightly molehills all over the place.

When the moles come to your home, it’s unlikely they are going to leave on their own. As time goes by, the problem will just get worse and your beautiful lawn will be no more.

Take back your yard and get rid of those moles today!

If you need help and want to learn how to get rid of moles in your yard, read about our 7 expert tips below.

1. Grow Specific Plants

Moles are repelled by certain types of plants. You can plant them around the edges of your yard for a natural and effective way to get rid of moles.

Some flowers to plant that you may want to try include:

Daffodils
Alliums
Fritillarias
Crown imperials
Marigolds
Narcissuses

You can also make an onion, garlic, chives, or shallots garden! Moles hate these plants as well, but you’ll also get some great ingredients for your kitchen.

Another option is to grow castor beans, but they are toxic and can be dangerous to pets or children.

2. Invite Predators

You can invite some of the natural predators of moles, like owls and hawks, to your yard to keep the moles away. To do this, add a post that is at least 10 feet high and give them a small perch to land on.

Set your expectations low, though. Owls, hawks, foxes, and snakes do take moles, but a mole spends nearly its whole life underground and only becomes catchable in the seconds it surfaces. Predators have never cleared a yard for any customer we have worked with. We went through the full list of what actually hunts them, and why it does not solve your problem, in what eats moles.

If you have a brave cat or dog, they may go after a mole they catch above ground. Worth knowing before they do: we cover the real health risks, and the ones people overstate, in do moles carry diseases.

3. Use Natural Deterrents

If you’re looking for tips on how to drive off moles, the biggest one may be found in your kitchen cabinet.

Castor oil is the one deterrent worth discussing honestly, because it is the only one with any real mechanism behind it. It does not kill moles. The idea is that it taints the soil and the worms in it enough to make a stretch of tunnel unpleasant, so the mole feeds somewhere else.

In practice that is also its limit. It moves activity around rather than removing the animal, the effect washes out with rain and irrigation, and a mole that shifts twenty feet is still your mole. We tested it properly and wrote up what it does and does not do in castor oil for moles.

Scent tricks further down the list, including leftover fish and dog waste, do not survive contact with a real yard at all. A mole hunts by touch and smell for living prey, and it simply digs past a treated stretch.

4. Cut and Replace Grass

Moles need good places to hide in the yard, so keeping your grass mowed and flower beds well-cared for will keep them away. While landscaping, try to avoid multiple layers of mulch or stacks of wood.

Another tip is to rake and remove leaves as soon as you can after they fall onto your lawn.

Generally, moles are known to damage sod. Without the grass, they don’t have anywhere to go!

If you want to avoid the mole problem entirely, you can always replace the grassy parts of your outdoor space with something else like tile or concrete. You could add other ground coverings instead to deter the moles from even considering your lawn.

5. Skip the Noise and Vibration Tricks

Wind chimes, a radio aimed at the tunnels, and the solar sonic spikes sold at every garden center all rest on the same idea: that a sensitive animal will flee an annoying sound. It does not hold up, and we want to save you the money and the season.

Moles habituate. A mole is already living underneath mowers, traffic, footsteps, and rain, and a tunnel network in good soil represents an enormous amount of digging effort sitting in a food supply. Abandoning that over a harmless buzz is a bad trade, and the animal does not make it. We have pulled moles out of lawns with repellent stakes still blinking twenty feet away.

If you want the longer version, including what moles genuinely sound like and why you cannot find one by listening, we wrote it up in do moles make noise.

6. Do Not Use Poison or Exhaust Gas

We used to list this as an option. We do not any more, and we would rather be straight with you about why.

Moles are insectivores. They hunt live earthworms and grubs, so the grain baits and pellets sold for rodents are not food to a mole and mostly get pushed aside like any other debris in the run. What the bait does reliably reach is whatever else is in your yard, which is why these products carry the warnings they carry around pets and children.

Piping exhaust from a car or a mower into a tunnel is worse. Carbon monoxide is odorless and it is genuinely dangerous to the person doing it, the gas vents out through a network that was built to breathe, and you are unlikely to reach an animal that simply moves to another part of the system. Please do not try it.

There is also a legal dimension people miss. Mothballs and similar products are registered pesticides with binding labels, and using one in a way the label does not allow breaks federal law. We cover the whole family of shortcuts in our test of the popular mole home remedies.

7. Call the Professionals

If you’ve tried some of the above ideas and they just aren’t working for you, it’s time to call a professional for help. Trapping the moles may be the only solution that will work.

We will give you a quote based on the size and scope of the mole problem you have. At Trap Your Moles, we will do any size job, whether you have a commercial or residential lawn.

Our professionals have the right equipment, tools, and know-how to eliminate the moles.

Learn How to Get Rid of Moles in Your Yard

A mole infestation can be a stressful, hazardous thing for you, your family, and your home. Luckily, you don’t have to let them have control over your grass!

Knowing how to get rid of moles in your yard and being able to do it on your own are two different things. If you’re struggling with mole removal, get in touch with us for efficient and effective service options.