I’m not a good gardener, but a mole is making it a hundred times worse.

[Passerillage]

A couple of years ago I got my lawn looking nice for the first time ever and planted some bushes and flowers but the mole that has usually worked its way along the back gardens of my terrace has taken up permanent residence in my garden and my garden is absolutely wrecked. My lawn looks like the aftermath of a WW1 battle with hills EVERYWHERE, it comes up under flowers, newly planted anything. It just wreaks havoc. My garden - never good to start with - looks so slovenly and crap now.

How can I get rid of it?? I’m at my wits end.

Oh no. They are really hard to get rid of. If you have a strong stomach, google mole traps. It's a snap trap, absolutely imorrally brutal and not something you want. So that's a no, really.

Have you tried a motion deterrent? Even ,d school children's windmills poked into the earth and help. But they're not 100% at all.

They are a sign of a healthy soil though. Can you just co-exist for a bit?
The soil in molehills is so fine that it is actually really good for using to sow seeds.

Apparently sticking a stem of rhubarb down the hole moves them on because they don't like the smell

I have absolutely no idea of whether this is true or not but it is just about rhubarb time of year and it seems a lot less brutal than some of the alternatives

My father made mole-disturbances to get rid of moles.
One was a sturdy pinwheel in the ground, to make vibrations and disturb the moles to make them leave.
The other was that he hung bottles from trees with strings on a certain height. Then he put sticks in the ground under the bottles and put the sticks in the bottles (so from the top it was: tree - string - bottle - stick - ground). When the wind blew it moved the bottle, and created a vibration in the ground from the stick. This was also to disturb the moles. I am sorry I can't explain it better!
It worked pretty well, there were less moles, I think. And a least the pinwheel looked pretty nice!
Good Luck!

Now I see that someone already suggested a windmill/pinwheel!
Like I said, at least it looks pretty nice.

There is a lovely children’s book called “Mole moves house”, by Elizabeth Buchanan, which is funny and delightful and might give you some ideas…!

Sorry but It is only going to get worse if they start breeding. Are the molehills in circles or straight lines? Straight lines, probably a male (and looking for a female) Easier to catch a male. If female there will be a run down to water try and get that.
I know it’s not nice but get a trap from an agricultural merchant. Bury the trap in the ground for about a month so it loses its new smell. Try and pick a run between molehills, probe the ground with a stick to find one, place trap and make sure there is absolutely no light getting around the trap as the mole will no longer use that run.

Wear old pair of gardening gloves when handling the trap so no human smell gets on the trap too

Dont use a mole snap trap.

They really are evil. As are those who use them.

I’d be quite excited if a mole moved into my garden. I like animals more than neat gardens though.

This. It's their world too.

Some things are more valuable than tidy lawns.

I don’t find the mole hills to bad tbh. Every year around spring it’s the worst, but I just flatten down the hills after a while and re grass seed and after a few weeks it’s looks fine. I don’t have a super flat tidy garden though so you don’t notice

I can live with mole hills in lawns - I just trowel the loose earth away onto the borders each time.
Less easy to live with moles in a veg patch though, as in dry weather they home in on where you have watered in search of worms etc., and in doing so can inadvertently lift and kill a whole row of young vegetable plants in one go.

In the past, I have tried no end of methods that are supposed to deter them - bottles, windmills, garlic - but nothing has ever made the slightest difference.

If you really can't live with them, traps are the only way, but fortunately for the moles, using them effectively is a skill most people don't have. Also, many moles acquire the skill to detect and bypass them anyway.

Supposedly putting your old coffee grounds down the holes deters them ..
Next door have put mole sensors in .. Im not sure if either works through, we still get them !

I guess I'd go with John Major. I was at school and then university - which was free - health care seemed good, property was affordable, it felt like there was a promising future ahead with lots of opportunities.

Not Maggie because of poll tax, not Blair because between him and the US the whole Middle East was destabilised - and look at the problems that led to, not Brown as he sold off half our gold reserves, not Cameron as he was to blame for the Brexit vote debacle and then fucked off, not Theresa May as she failed with Brexit, not Boris because he is a pompous fucking imbecile, not Truss for very obvious reasons, and not Sunak because the country is fast going down the pan and he seems unable to do anything about it.

Shit wrong thread! Apologies! Sorry to derail moles....

Don't use a trap. They're absolutely awful things. And you'll probably be quite distressed by what you've done if you catch one.

You can get stuff you put on the ground or in the holes that's supposed to deter them. I don't know if it works, I just put up with our moles and either spread the mole hill earth on the lawn if there was a particular divot, or used it for planting seeds / potting on as it's effectively sived already.

https://www.gardening-naturally.com/vitax-mole-repellent

@Choconut tbf, if that lot turned up in OPs garden I expect the moles would beat a hasty retreat!

Roald Dahl described his mole deterrent technique in a book once. You put bury a few empty wine bottles up to their necks in the mole holes. The wind blows over and creates a whistling sound the moles hate the noise and move out.
Like councils playing music outside places they don’t want antisocial groups of teens to hang out.

"There's only one way to get rid of a mole"

Sorry, couldn't resist!

I was just thinking about that OP, you need a head torch, a swivel stool, a shotgun and a curious neighbour.

Thank you all. I don't fancy the trap - I don't think the mole is being malicious, exactly, and he/she/ is not invading my home (we did have to use kill traps for rats a couple of years ago).

I will try the pellets and the vibrations/pinwheels. Thank you!