Question
I’ve got voles on my lawn and I’d like to get rid of them. A neighbor advised me to put mothballs in their holes. Does it work?
Answer
The use of naphthalene, commonly known as mothballs, is a method sometimes recommended by word-of-mouth. However, this approach is far from a miracle solution. Inserting mothballs into holes dug by voles only encourages them to move around and create new tunnels, without eliminating them from your garden.
Naphthalene is not only useless, but toxic, harming other animals and useful wildlife, and posing risks to human health. Ingestion by domestic or wild animals can cause serious health problems. It adversely affects beneficial insects and can contaminate soil and water.
Minimizing Impact
It’s important to recognize that voles are extremely resilient and prolific creatures, capable of adapting and multiplying rapidly in a variety of environments, whether urban or rural. Their ability to reproduce at a sustained rate makes total eradication of these rodents from your property virtually impossible.
Nevertheless, there are strategies to minimize the visual impact of the damage they cause to your lawn. One of the simplest and most effective techniques is to fill in the tunnels and holes left by field mice with quality soil, then reseed these areas with a suitable grass seed mix. This approach not only masks the signs of vole activity, but also helps to regenerate and beautify your lawn. In just a few weeks, signs of voles invasion become invisible, allowing your garden to regain its aesthetic appeal and health. Adaptation and proactive damage management are the keys to maintaining an attractive, lively green space, despite the inevitable presence of these little inhabitants of nature.
Other Strategies
Alternatively, to ecologically reduce voles in the garden, encourage natural predators such as birds of prey, by installing perches. Use natural repellents (e.g. garlic or aromatic plants) and consider trapping with specific devices, taking care not to harm other animals. Physical barriers, such as buried barriers, can protect vulnerable areas.
Larry Hodgson published thousands of articles and 65 books over the course of his career, in both French and English. His son, Mathieu, has made it his mission to make his father’s writings accessible to the public. This article on voles was originally published in Le Soleil on April 30, 2004.
But wait .. how do birds help moles problems when moles live underground? What am I missing?
My veggie garden is plagued with voles. I’ve tried all sorts of ways to get rid of them including cleaning up the area, (no debris anywhere and no planks of wood or other places where they burrow under and nest), and trapping, but they are still a real problem. This year, I am trying castor oil. A golf course worker told me to spray a combination of 1 part castor oil to 10 parts water around the areas I want to protect and to create a “walkway” by spraying a two lines of the mixture, leaving a walkway between, towards a sacrificial root crop such as beets and/or carrots. He said the voles and moles will avoid what I’ve sprayed in favour of the sacrificial crop. He suggested if mice are a problem in your house it helps to spray the perimeter of the house in the fall, when mice are looking for a warm place to pass the winter, because they don’t like to cross a barrier of castor oil. A depth of 2 feet around the house ought to do it. We shall see…