The photos show the tunnels I've located in newly planted sod. They appear to b inline vs a spoke pattern. I've read that before placing bait into a tunnel, it is imparative to locate the main traveling tunnels. I'm hoping for advise from others with more experience doing this. Specifically, do I need to find more tunnels and which ones should b baited ? all efforts with other methods have thus far failed. Thx for any suggestions

Hi ImRatedTVMA2! Baiting moles can be tricky. The bait goes into the tunnels. Rodent killer like D-con does not work on moles. It takes a bait that is made to look and taste like earth worms. The problem with the worm bait is that the sick/dead mole becomes like a "poison" to any animal that gets ahold of it. Pet dogs or cats, scavenger birds, birds of prey, owls. You never know when that mole will surface and what other animal will be around it. May today be a happy day!

I had luck flooding the tunnels. Your new sod will love the extra water. If you see a mole emerge from the area, be ready to kill the little bustard!

If you flatten all the tunnels, any new ones that appear will definitely be active.

I agree - flatten everything. Do you have a lawn roller? That would make the job easier. Then check first thing in the morning for new tunnels. (I let my dog do that part of the job.) I agree that baiting with poison will do more harm than good as the dead mole becomes food for other animals. Better to use the spike traps.

Some say moles are deterred by vibration.One of my neighbors had good luck by using lots of pretty plastic pinwheels. She covered her lawn with the with pinwheels and the vibration made the moles move on to the next property. Others have used a metal pole (such as re-bar) with a glass bottle to cause vibration.

We are plagued with moles and I have just learned to co-exist with them. The lawn looks like a mine field most of the time, but oh well. I'm not a grass snob, and my lawn does not even remotely resemble a golf green - instead it is a mish-mash of field grasses, clover, daisies, buttercups, other weeds, and mole hills. The only way we have found to effectively get rid of moles is to trap them. As Porkpal suggests, flatten out the existing hills to get a notion of where the main tunnels are, then place your traps accordingly. I run around my lawn with the riding mower blade set at the lowest setting but without the blade on to flatten the hills. Sometimes I toss some reseeding grass seed over the smushed hills, but usually not.

My neighbor has good luck just gardening close to a new hill, and when she sees movement, she stabs straight down with her shovel and kills them that way. I don't have that patience.

My dog occasionally catches one, but actually makes as much of a mess as the moles do -- mole hill versus dog hole - you decide...

Otherwise, we've tried all known urban legends - Juicyfruit gum, human hair, castor oil, crushed eggshells, garlic, those silly whirly-gigs, super sonic vibration devices, peeing in, flooding, gassing the tunnels - no luck with any. I know my husband has also poured gawd-awful concoctions down the holes (I'm a staunch organic gardener, but he has a 'hidden' poison stash in the barn), and nothing he's come up with has worked so I'd advise against any chemical measures. All that does in my mind is poison the earth and put your pets at risk.

Good luck!

Edited: Cross posted with Greene. You referred to the whirly gigs as pretty, I called them silly. No offense intended. To each their own. I have no pink flamingos....

We (DH and I ) have always looked at these critters as just aerating the soil. We've not seen that they do any harm, per se...They kind of just come and go in our area, and really haven't found them to do much harm. Leave well enough alone? Unless they're causing true damage? Let 'em be. They very well could be feasting on grub worms, as is usually the case in our neck of the woods.

Are you sure it's a mole and not a gopher?

Pest, Gopher and mole Identification. Do I have a gopher or a mole?
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/t...
Our local guy http://www.thegopherguy.com/pa...

Someone recently recommended this for moles, I have not tried it yet.
http://www.domyownpestcontrol....
I flooded one out yesterday but had nothing to smack him with and it scurried across the pathway and down another hole. I kept blasting it with water but noticed later fresh surface tunnels so I failed in drowning it.

When I accidently flooded part of my lawn, I saw the mole making a getaway across the street! All I had was my red rain full of plants. I ran over him and his pointy little head. But it only stunned him. My neighbor saw me and my ruckus and came over with her hammer to finish the job.

I took out another one when I saw the ground pulsating. I hammered a loooong screwdriver into the soil until it came up bloody. Then hammered it all the way in and let it sit there for an hour . Instant burial!

So far, so good this year with no unearthed trails. But I've made double sure the grub worms stayed out of the lawn after all the rain. Plus it helps that the neighbor next door has started to take better care of his lawn.

Hey @ImRatedTVMA2 --- Try http://www.gardensalive.com/ca...
Everything I have ever purchased from them has worked very well and they are also very environmentally conscious.

Invite the neighborhood cat. I had lawn moles or voles in my lawn for years, then a stray cat took refuge under my back porch and I would find the little buggers on the drive way as 'presents', or half eaten snacks.

I'm in the "flood them out" club here. Always had excellent results just sticking the hose down the holes every day for a week or so until the water came up out of the other holes.

The moles would retreat to the neighbor's after just a few days of this. It also kills off the broods of babies if they have a den under your lawn.