Others in the neighborhood thought it was neat, so Saturday mornings often were punctuated with muffled thumps and vibrations in the ground.
The practice seemed to stop years ago. I do not know whether people got bored with it, or ran out of moles.
I guess moles or voles have two levels to their tunnels. The top level is for cruising and the lower level is where they live, and other methods like smoke bombs could not get both levels. Air/Fuel explosives could. They probably killed by consuming all the oxygen.
Of course, it created carbon dioxide, so you'd have to live with yourself for causing Global Warming Climate Change.
We used sharp rakes and pitchforks.
This reminds me of something that happened to me many years ago while I was in law school. Three friends of mine and I had rented a house in Urbana, IL that was about 4 miles away from school. I commuted on a Honda Super 90 motorcycle. The bike would periodically get dirty and I'd clean it off with about a pint of gasoline. We had an old 50 gallon drum in the back yard for burning trash and I'd dispose of the used gas by throwing it into the drum and following up immediately with a torch that would ignite the fumes with no real trouble. That was until one fine day when I tossed in the gas, tossed in the torch, and nothing immediately happened. Knowing what was inevitably to happen, I started backing away from the barrel as fast as I could. Anyway, the fire found the gas fumes, now nicely mixed with air, in a few seconds and there was a big explosion. A giant fireball, combined with pieces of burning trash, shot out of the top of the barrel, definitely impressing all the local housewives. Oh, for the days of one's misspent youth once again.