Seeing dirt piles on your lawn? Your family’s safety, the integrity of your home, and aesthetics are just a few reasons you’ll want to make sure these unique burrowing critters stay out of your yard. Follow the steps below to protect your lawn (and home) from mole damage. Your particular case may involve any combination of several of these steps, and not necessarily in this order.
Step 1: Identify Mole Presence
Other critters, like voles or groundhogs, are also notorious for causing trouble under your lawn’s surface. Vole damage often presents as dead patches of grass, as their main objective is to search for roots, stems and bulbs. Groundhog damage often presents similarly to mole damage, with one of the main differences being location—groundhogs’ tunnels are much deeper than mole tunnels. Groundhog tunnels are larger and have more entrances and exits than moles’.
If you’re seeing tunnel activity close to the surface, there’s a good chance it’s moles. To identify a mole problem, some things to search for include the aforementioned mounds of soil and slightly raised ridges close to the surface of your lawn. Other things to keep an eye out for include soft spots or tunnels in your lawn. These are signs of mole activity in your yard.
Step 2: Put Up Physical Barriers
Once you’ve identified that moles are indeed your unwanted visitor, one effective way to keep them out is to install underground fences at least 2 feet deep and above-ground by several inches to prevent burrowing by the crafty creatures. Make sure you are using high-quality and durable material for your fence—good picks include hardware cloth or mesh.
Step 3: Keep Your Yard Free of Food Sources:
Moles subsist on insects, earthworms and grubs. Keeping your lawn mown and clipping overgrown shrubs will help discourage mole activity by keeping the insect population down.
Step 4: Mole Trapping
DIY trapping is an option and a good place to start—live trap options are specially designed to catch moles in a safe way. Moles are notoriously difficult to trap, so it might end up that you need to call the professionals.
You might be wondering “why is it so hard to trap moles?” For a variety of reasons, these creatures are among the most difficult to get ahold of. These include their solitary nature, their complex networks of tunnels, their excellent hearing and ability to elude humans, their adaptability to be able to dig new tunnel systems with multiple exits quickly, and being cautious of new objects.
The specialists at Critter Control of Cleveland know how to keep moles out of your yard—call our team now! 216.342.2316