@anon88169868 Well that’s your choice🤷🏼♀️ For the first two years when this was a second home we did do mowing trips.
This year the moles have gone mad and there are more hills than I have ever seen. It’s not just the grass, though that’s bad enough, they have come up in my flower beds and the plants are dying off 
I may have to resort to a trap 
Same problem here - they are normally long gone by now. Wish you could buy a robotic mole killer…
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Are you sure they are moles rather than voles? Our voles seem to go in three year cycles, with the third year being a nightmare [look up pullulation campagnols and you’ll get the explanation).
Who knew cutting grass could provide a gross monthly income of €7.5k. Even taking into account 5 months when work is sparse that’s still €52.5k a year.
My husband laughed when I asked him if cutting grass was equivalent to being an artisan. He says perhaps a groundsman at Lord’s might be.
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I saw a baby mole at Berkhamsted castle years ago, it was so sweet. I could never kill one now.
The costs of being a self employed business in france are very high. On a turnover of 52,500€ you may well only be taking home 25 or 30,000€. (Although I can’t see how you get to that figure with an hourly rate of 30€, Probably more like 40,000€ turnover in reality).
You may be able to find an unskilled person for a lower rate, but a professional gardener is a skilled artisan. So the time has the same value no matter what the task.
Fair enough, I’ll just ask them if they’d mind moving elsewhere 
I’ve not killed one yet…god knows I’ve tried though.
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We have a local mole catcher who looks after our hectare plus patch.
Costs us in the region of 1€/week over the course of a year and I reckon on saving his fee by not having to replace the blades on our ride-on.
The land looks less like a WWI battle ground too
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Well I thought we were talking about cutting grass not gardening. If someone is solely cutting grass then I think €30 an hour is a substantial wage. My mum has a professional gardener in the UK and pays £15 an hour.
The gardener employed here in France before we bought the house had managed to damage some trees, dump cut branches in the hedge and generally seemed to have little regard for the property. My husband who has been a keen amateur gardener since he was 15 does a stunning job and is probably more of an artisan than some of those who work professionally.
Last week(not looking what I was doing) I mowed over a mole hill. This was followed by a lot of what sounded like terminal noises from the mower and then a rolled up length of rusty thick wire popped out the back. Got away with it though, didn’t even break the belt. I had a few choice words for the moles though.
Thanks all for the interesting replies - and I am glad that moles are not an issue for us.
As for the gardener’s costs, I think a rate of 10.6c / sqm seems fair and, as we live on the edge of a largish town, we dont have the luxury of the tightly knit community spirit that could provide the sort of service that Stella refers to. Trenti (the gardener) has looked after the garden and hedges of this house for years and knows my in-laws very well (MIL taught him at school) so I dont think he is ripping us off. It is more that I just want to keep the lawn down to manageable proportions and thought that a robotic mower would be the way forward. The house is regularly visited by MIL and is one of 4 in a cul-de-sac so is watched over by very friendly neighbours. There is a substantial fence / wall and gates surrounding the property and anyone with no business being there is immediately pounced upon, so theft would be a low risk I think. Additionally, the one we are looking at can be controlled remotely via apps - need to see if ‘remotely’ means possible from the UK!!!
Have watched the Husqvarna vids with great interest and will be talking with a local supplier when we get out there next month to see what is what.
Meantime - back to the videos 
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In this technological age anything is possible but you would need to have your internet switched on to be able to achieve that I guess.
That would require the electrickery to also be switched on which might itself pose a problem with your insurer - IIRC, don’t you have to switch it off when the property is unoccupied?
HI Graham - Re the lecky… our insurers have not stipulated one way or the other about turning it off. As it is, it remains on because the central heating pump needs to run (in the cooler months). Additionally, the internet box is running permanently as well as it provides our link with the security cameras.
Sounds all good to me but might be worth advising your insurer all the same just to be on the safe side.
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Which is probably a similar take-home amount to a french self employed person on 25€/hour.
We have a full sized robotic lawn mower at the golf club, about the same size as a family saloon, It cuts the fairways perfectly but is not allowed on the greens yet.
It is very polite, never moving while you play a shot and senses if a ball is in it’s path. It operates on some form of GPS system l believe and gets on with the work unattended - Not good news for the green - keepers in the future they could all be replaced:confused:
Still trying to persuade our Association Sportive to fit it with on-tap refreshment and baguettes😊
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I have seen one being used at a race track, seemed to be ok, but like Peter I watched the mower rather than the racers!
Leroy Merlin have one in their store displaying it’s abilities.
With all the mole hills I have at the moment I can imagine this thing going round and round in circles to try and avoid them and then falling into the étang ! 
The new , and very expensive , robot mower of a rather boastful Dutch neighbour ended up in the bottom of their new and very expensive pool much to the suppressed glee of everyone .
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