Massive Vole nest

We have voles again. After hiring an exterminator last time, and treating our grass for grubs. THEIR BACK! They keep burrowing under the cement slab that sits at the top of our walkup. I am perplexed at what more I can do. Not wanting to put traps out because of small children, I am now thinking, we will have to resort to poison - the dig up the nest (yuck) and apply some type of repellent. Our neighbors (sorry neighbors) to both sides of us seem to be Vole free and why not? The voles are havin' a good ole' time hangin' out in our yard! First I want the fury disgusting things gone, second I want to stop seeing the same holes we dug up and filled - redug, and finally I want them to stop leering at me - yes I said leering. Okay I am only kidding.

With traps not an option, and an exterminator apparently a total waste of money, what can we do?

 

A quick google search turned up multiple hits including an article from the University of California that will tell you more about the little creeps than you want to know.

When we had them, the exterminator put out the bait boxes and that seemed to solve the issue. You should be able to do that yourself.

Otherwise, you may have to resort to napalm, a large calibre weapon or clowns. I know clowns scare the jeepers outta me. Maybe voles don;t like them either.

 

Did you use an exterminator from around this area? I really did not think the one that originally did ours did much. He sprinkled some pellets and told us to treat for grubs. Since we now have a good lawn service, I would like to fix the fur critters problem now.

 

My previously posted vole view:

The following was posted along with other comments and ideas at http://hoa.broadlands.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=817

I am a self proclaimed warrior on the battle against voles and moles. I've tried all kinds of weapons of mass distruction on these vial, yard destroying creatures.

Voles are vegitarians.

Moles eat meaty things, (worms, grubs, bugs, etc.) Unfortunately moles don't eat voles.

Voles are best killed by getting a plastic bait box. It is a small box about the size of a shoe box. Inside has 4 to 6 stakes for poison. The poison comes in cubes with holes in the middle. You slide these poison clubes onto the stakes, close up the box, and place the box in the vicinity of your vole sightings. Voles crawl in eat the poison and then die elsewhere. You'll be amazed at how fast the poison disappears.

Moles aren't interested in the poisons, as they eat meaty things.

As for moles, the only way to get rid of them is to physically execute them. Spring traps are the best. Screwdrives work as well, if you have a quick 10 year old son. They tend to nest underneath trees in the stump roots. The more traps you use the better. Place the traps over the trails you can see in your yard. They should be raised dirt hump trails. Different looking than vole trails. Voles tend to skim across the ground, eating their way through the root system of grass. Moles are deeper.

By the way, when you get your first kill, you will feel like going to the taxidermist. It is quit a thrill.

There are tons of marketing cures for these vermints. None work, from my experience, i.e. grub killer (moles eat other things than just grubs), sonic barriers, sharded gravel, voodoo dolls, juicy fruit gum (this is true, some say, voles eat the gum, can't digest it and die, I tried it, didn't work)

It is likely you have both voles and moles and will have to deploy both offensive tactics.

Good luck, and let us all know of your pending success against this scurge on our yards.

 

I don't think I have both. Pretty much I have seen what they look like when they use the plastic green water runoffs as hiding places, they kindof look like field mice but you get the picture. I just don't want them to eat the poison and then crawl up under my deck and die there fore leaving a huge pile of death and decay from all those little voles eating poisons and crawling home to die. YUCK! My only concern with the boxes you suggest is that our backyard is not fenced, I would hate to have small child play with the box - our backyard is part of a bunch of backyards that are not fenced with kids running up and down the back of them - which for some reason has not been a vole deterrance.

 

Box is safe. It does sound like voles. You need to keill them! The box has a lock on it, keeps kids and pets out of it. It only attracts voles. Trust me.

 

Okay--that cracked me up. My brother-in-law has a deathly fear of clowns and if you mention Pennywise from Stephen King's "IT" he literally starts to sweat.

I don't think we have any voles or moles. Never seen either one around these parts.

 

My morning started out with my hunting dogs discovering a voles nest in our backyard under the stone wall we built.
Good times. Me screaming my head off at 7:00 am at the dogs who are just following their hunting instincts.
Lots of dead ones in the back now - exterminator coming later today to set traps.
Any of you want to borrow one of the dogs they did a GREAT job

 

Please do not use a bait box where the animal can exit and die elsewhere. The animal will get eaten by an unsuspecting predator, perhaps a dog, cat, raccoon, birds, etc and transmit the poison.

 

Hmmmm hunting gods you say? I know a certain black lab I could borrow but with my luck he is too friendly and would just end of barking at them.

Let me know which exterminator you call - I need to call one, I know, I know I could research and buy my own darn boxes but I am not that proactive. Would an exterminator put down repellant? What stops the voles from taking up residence again say once the initial killing spree spots? Also, how many voles fit in a box? Do you just keep replacing boxes as they fill up? I am guessing the voles crawl in, eat bait, die in box. I then go out everyday check my boxes of death, and find some way to seal them so they don't smell up my garbage and then replace with a fresh box? Eventually, I would guess that I will kill them off but then what happens to the nest that is left behind? Do I have to tear what is visible up? Anyone that lives in Broadlands knows that it takes a strong arm and alot of will power to dig up any kind of dirt in the backyard - it is like picking through concrete! I am guessing I will need some kind of filler because I have a rather large area now under my cement slab that has been tunneled out. Dirt? Raw Sewage? A pool of liquid Lava?

 

PMSI in Ashburn is who I use. I pay $90 a quarter and anything that happens in between visits is covered by them at no additional cost. The inspector will be here today and I'll let you know what they recommend. Since we have curious dogs they never use products that are unkind to them. We've had ants and bees and both times the company used products that dissipated quickly so as not to harm the dogs. This will be a challenge indeed...

 

Sounds like you need a good pet snake to eat the voles for you.

 

Sunnydog let me know what they tell you. Voles are an infestation / rodents so I think they are not covered under a service contract - I could be wrong. I am eager to hear what they tell you.

 

Hi, no news yet from the inspector. He was here when I was at work but I'll call tomorrow morning. We are covered against rodents. This is from their website:
Our QUARTERLY PEST MANAGEMENT SYSTEM is designed for year-round protection and includes control of your immediate problem-plus-protection against other common pests such as rats, mice, ants, roaches, bees, ticks, fleas, millipedes, centipedes and crickets.

Services are scheduled on a QUARTERLY basis and are pre-arranged with the homeowner. In addition, emergency service during normal working hours is available with no extra charge.

 

Great news!
I spoke with Kevin at PMSi - it's an addition $5/quarter for vole/mole treatment. Otherwise it would be $450 for under an acre.
They will treat the entire yard with Talpert bait worms. It's like a rubberized worm that they put into the soil which the critters feed on and then die.
Everything is kept underground so the dogs aren't harmed, nor are birds of prey. The holes that the exterminator creates and plants the worm in are flagged with a little red golf tee. They'll come back in 6 weeks and inspect the results.

 

Sunnydog:

Did they charge an initial fee like $498 to treat then do the quarterly $95?

 

$485 for the initial. Was a bit of a shock because I was not interpreting my contract the same way as the exterminator.
Anyway, it is labor intensive. They dig 3 inches deep into the soil and drop in these tubes. Then they bait the tubes.
So I can see why it would be an initial fee...
I hope it's worth it.

 

The guy seemed to know what he was talking about. He also found a mole (not a vole) den in my front yard - that I had on idea was there. He will include that in the treatment. Yeah it was sticker shock but they will also come remove bodies should there be any that surface. The quarterly price is pretty decent - it's what I would pay for upkeep of ants/spiders anyways. I guess we will both find out if it is worth it soon. They were able to immediately start work on it and have been really nice to deal with otherwise.

 

Hberg, if it was Randy who came to see you be sure he uses a sleeve to put the worm bait into. He's coming back here tomorrow to make the adjustment - with curious dogs I don't want to take the chance and he didn't know that Kevin told me that's how it was to be buried.

 

We don't have dogs so I am not sure the sleeve matters. But the worms are for moles who eat meat, voles are veggie eaters so you must mean he treated for moles for you? We have one mole nest out front and voles in the backyard. He is treating the front with those rubber worm things and will do something else to the backyard treating the food voles eat. I can't remember the exact name of the stuff he is using for the voles.