How To Get Rid Of These Pests In New York State

Have you seen mounds of dirt in your yard like this?  What the heck is making them, and how do you get rid of them?

Tell me if you've seen this before.  They're little piles of dirt that almost look like little volcanoes spattered across your yard.

You work all summer long to keep your lawn nice.  You mow it, you water it, you might even fertilize it.  Then one night, you go to bed, only to wake up the next morning with random piles of dirt, somewhat in a line in your lawn.

Those piles could be a couple of things

There are a couple of things that could be creating those piles.  If holes accompany them, the piles of dirt might have come from a skunk.  Often, skunks will dig holes in a lawn hoping to find grubs, worms, and other tasty insects for them to eat.

If the dirt looks like it's coming up instead of being pushed down into a hole, it's more likely that you have a mole problem.  We see a lot of them in New York around this time of year.  Moles have been known to leave behind small piles of dirt as they burrow through your yard making tunnels to live in.

Here's how to get rid of moles

There are a couple of ways to get rid of moles.  First, you could try to poison them.  Many companies produce a poison that is meant to take out an entire labor (that's what you call a group of moles) of them.

There are repellants.  Those will probably just push the moles into your neighbors' yards.

The best way to get rid of them though, is to get rid of their food.  If you want moles to leave, take away their food source.  They are known to eat a lot of insects and things like grubs and ants.  If you want to get rid of moles, try treating your lawn for these things, and see if they come back in the spring.

Speaking of pests, these are a couple that you'll see in New York that you might want to avoid: