How Do You Get Rid of Ground Moles With Dawn Soap?

A ground mole problem spells losses in your compound, especially if you maintain a garden. These pests dig holes that leave ugly soil mounds on your lawn. The digging may also interfere with the foundation of your house and other structures.

You can bank on various control measures to keep away moles. The problem is these pests are pretty resilient and may come back. Before you give up, you might want to consider dawn soap as a solution: you heard that right, dawn soap can do away with moles. Read on as we show you how to get rid of ground moles with dawn soap solution.

Why Do You Suddenly Have Moles in Your Yard?

You suddenly have moles in your yard because of abundant food. Moles will visit your yard to find food, mainly earthworms, and other invertebrates. Moles mostly raid your lawn in spring or fall when there is plenty of food. You know you have a ground mole problem when you spot mole hills on your yard.

These subterranean creatures prefer loamy and moist soil, which is easy to claw through to get food. While moles are carnivores, they can interfere with the root structure of your garden plants due to their burrowing, leading to their wilting.

Using Dawn Soap To Eliminate Ground Moles

Once you identify a yard mole situation, you get dawn soap and castor oil to make a repellant. Here’s how to get rid of ground moles in your yard.

1. Find sections in your yard with mole activity
2. Mix 2 ounces of dawn dish soap, 1/2 a cup of castor oil, and 4 cups of water
3. Place the mixture in a spray bottle
4. Spray lawn sections where moles frequent

Step 1: Find Yard Sections With Mole Activity

Here’s how to get rid of ground moles with dawn soap. First, identify possible sections where moles reside to know the quantity of dawn dish soap you need. Telltale signs of a ground mole infestation include the presence of molehills, and trails, which appear like raised tunnels. Also, you can check your garden for damaged plant roots or stems. 

It is hard to point out moles as they hardly emerge from the ground. Mark the areas with holes or openings for repellant application.

Step 2: Prepare the Dawn Dish Soap Solution

Mix 2 ounces of dawn dish soap with half a cup of castor oil and four cups of water in a spray bottle. Ensure the components mix well before you hit the yard to deal with the moles. 

Some homeowners prefer using boiled water to infuse soap and castor oil properly. Increase the quantity of the components if you have a large lawn for effective ground mole control.

Step 3: Spraying the Dawn Soap Repellant

Spray the repellant generously over your lawn, targeting areas of mole activity. Try and saturate the yard with the solution to force the moles out of your yard. Pour some of the mixture directly into the holes created by the burrowers.

Evenings are the best time to spray your lawn, as they coincide with when the moles get active. Spray regularly for like two weeks to deal with the pest situation once and for all. With no mole activity on your compound, you can eliminate the unsightly soil mounds from the digging. 

Spray your lawn at the beginning of spring and fall to prevent a repeat infestation. 

How Does Dawn Dish Soap Get Rid of Moles?

The castor oil in the dawn dish soap mixture repulses moles, forcing them to redirect their burrowing. The strong scent of the soap also keeps the digging creatures away. Dawn soap scent will also help repel gophers, voles, and other rodents

Still, on how to get rid of ground moles with dawn soap, you might want to know what makes the detergent effective. Some people think that castor oil kills the moles, which is not the case. It’s the soap’s scent that deters moles.

You should wear gloves when using dish soap, especially if your skin is sensitive. Furthermore, keep your pets away from the sprayed lawns for their safety until it dries. After a downpour, you must respray your compound, as the rain may wash off the repellant.

Alternative Ways of Getting Rid of Yard Moles

Dawn soap plus castor oil is one of the many ways to deal with a ground mole problem in your yard. But there are more ways to deter moles. Let us look at other measures to pull to keep the burrowing pests away from your compound.

Use Mole Repellents

Mole repellents are the most effective way of dealing with pests. They work by killing or repelling the moles. The problem with the repellants is their toxicity, calling for careful use around pests, lest you kill the wrong animal. 

You can look for solutions that are friendly to pets and the environment to prevent mishaps. Optionally, consider ways to get rid of ground moles naturally, such as using coffee grounds and cayenne pepper on the moles’ holes. 

Use an Insecticide

Moles will visit your yard to look for food like earthworms and grubs. Getting rid of their food source is an excellent way of preventing an infestation. An insecticide that can kill insects in their adult and larval stages will do an excellent job. 

A carbamate insecticide is the solution to earthworms, moles’ primary food. However, with no earthworms, your yard will be less fertile, especially the garden area. 

Avoid Excessive Watering

Moles love loose and moist loamy soil for easy burrowing. Tone down the watering slightly to prevent a mole or earthworm problem. An inch of water weekly is enough to keep your lawn healthy.

Build a Barrier

Another way of controlling a mole problem is by building a barrier on their burrowing path. Start by digging a trench roughly two feet deep and six inches wide on areas you suspect mole activity. When dug in the right spots, you will see the runways.

Fill up the trench with gravel or stones and cover it with dirt. The moles will retract their steps when they encounter the barrier on their path.

While it can be an effective way of keeping away the pests, it is tedious as you need several barriers to control all burrowing networks. Also, the digging and filling up of the trenches can make your yard unsightly.

Use of Traps

Laying mole traps is a great way to bid goodbye to the pests in your yard. You can get the traps from agricultural supply stores, with instructions of use to be successful in your vermin hunt. You lay the traps on the mole’s path, mainly their tunnels. Their movement causes the snare to trap them. Pick the pest from the trap, release it to the wild, or kill it. 

Homemade traps are a DIY get rid of moles in yard solution. Mole pipe traps are among the easiest to make. You can check out videos and other guides on how to make simple mole traps at home.

Be ready to dig up the moles’ pathways to fix the traps. It can be as demanding as installing a barrier.

Baiting

Baits mimic moles’ primary foods, which are grubs and worms. The underground vermin die after eating the bait. To bait moles, you locate their tunnels and check for their activity; go for runways with high mole activity for successful baiting.

Put the bait deep into the tunnel, ensuring they settle on the floor where the moles can easily get them. Do not disturb the runways, as you may scare away the moles, forcing them to use alternative ways. Check for mole activity after a few days to see if the baiting was successful. Alternatively, use marshmallows to kill moles.

Pest Control

Call pest control to help deal with an out-of-hand mole situation. Pest control will handle the situation professionally, ensuring zero chances of a ground mole comeback. Additionally, they may do random checkups to analyze the situation after the intervention and advise you on ways of preventing a recurrence. 

Plant Repellants

Plants like marigolds, daffodils, and marigolds repel moles. Planting them on your lawn is a safe solution against moles, especially if you have kids or pets in your household.

Other solutions to a mole situation include having pets like cats, which can scare them away. Noises also deter moles: invest in buzz-creating devices that you install around your compound to keep off ground moles.

Final Thoughts

Are you having a ground mole situation in your home? If affirmative, dawn dish soap is a potent remedy to the problem. This article shows you how to get rid of ground moles with dawn soap, an effortless control measure.

Other ways of keeping away yard moles are using ground coffee, cayenne pepper, and traps. Pick a suitable measure and have your compound free of the unsightly molehills and runways.