by Margaret Radisich Sleasman

Created on: July 31, 2010

Does Juicy Fruit gum work on moles?  Maybe for some of us, but not for all of us; our mole families are still terrorizing the neighborhood.

I used to love that gum back when I had teeth and could chew it; now I have to buy the kind that doesn’t stick to false teeth and it does not have much flavor.  I have a friend that told me the best way to get rid of moles was to put Juicy Fruit gum in the mole holes – apparently, they would eat it and die.  I am not sure what they would die of, but they would at least go away.

My friend lived in the city limits and apparently “town” moles are different than “country” moles, but we did not know that and went out and bought a couple of boxes of the gum.  Hubby went around to each of our 497 mole holes, peeled the paper off the gum, moved the pile of dirt, placed a stick of gum in each hole and covered it back up.  A long day, but a job well done; we shall not have moles any more. 

The next day hubby looked into a few of the piles and found that the gum was gone so he figured he could safely flatten the dirt piles and the lawn would look good again.  The next day, there were more piles of mole dirt.  “Maybe one stick per hole isn’t enough,” hubby sighed and went out again to place more gum in the holes; this time two sticks each.  By evening he was pretty worn out but still hoping for the best; the next day, the mole holes were popping up all over the place.  “I think they like it, you know it is very flavorful,” I teased.  “Go buy a couple more boxes, this time I will leave it in the wrapper, and maybe the foil will get them,” he mused.

The belief is that the moles eat the gum because of the fruity smell, it gums up their intestines and they die.  This is suppose to be safer than poison because if your pet eats a dead mole that was poisoned, they may get poisoned too.  However, if they eat a juicy-fruit mole, they will just have pleasant smelling breath and maybe a little gas.

Back to the story, hubby put two sticks of gum in each hole and the gum was still in its personal paper and foil wrapper.  “These things are going to have to work for their food, by golly;” he cackled.  The next day there were many crows in the yard; apparently the moles spit out the foil and the crows were busy gathering the shiny pieces and taking them to the Shiny Castle at Crow’s Village that is filled with everything shiny and attractive including some of my picnic silverware I accidentally left out last year.  It seems that country moles are quite large and possibly very angry since they are now addicted to Juicy Fruit.  “I suppose if we don’t put more Juicy Fruit out, they will break into the house and eat the cat for revenge; or maybe us,” I am thinking as I go to Costco to purchase a couple more cases of the stuff. 

This project was getting rather expensive so we decided to wean the moles and put less and less gum out until we were putting out tiny crumbs and then finally, none.  We still have mole holes, but not nearly as many; I think they moved to town where there is more Juicy Fruit available to them.  My son was cleaning out our junk drawer the other day and found a jumbo package of unopened gum in the back corner.  “Wow, this must be old,” he laughs, “why in the world are you keeping it and did you even know it was there?”   “Put the gum back, we keep it as a reminder, we shall never speak of this again.” Hubby commanded.

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