mmr (04/21/83)
Several weeks I go I put out a cry for help about my mole problem. I got numerous, and varied responses. Here is a summary, you can judge for yourself what is practical and/or reasonable. 1. Get a cat that is a good hunter 2. Get a dog that is a good hunter 3. Borrow one or both of the above 4. Put human hair down the holes to scare them off 5. Use a gopher trap, which impales them in the tunnel 6. Try to drown them 7. Plant caster bean plants to repel them 8. Plant gopher plants to do same 9. Aerate the lawn over the tunnels (hoping to stab them) 10. Lawn roll over them to squish them 11. Gas them with mole bombs 12. Put raspberry canes in the tunnels so they scratch themselves and bleed to death. Margaret Reek Rochester Institute of Technology ucbvax!allegra!rochester!ritcv!mmr
rs55611 (05/01/83)
A friend of mine sells franchises for a lawn care company, and so reads a lot of lawn care trade magazines. I work for Bell Labs, so he showed me an ad for a mole/skunk repellent that a company makes, under license to Bell Labs, who hold the patent on the repellent. Apparently BTL chemists developed the repellent as a means to prevent moles from knawing into the insulation/casing of certain types of buried telephone cable. It also seems to work on skunks, although presumably skunks don't chew buried cable. Just a bit of gardening "trivia". Bob Schleicher BTL-Naperville, Ill. ihuxk!rs55611