Help - indoor snails!!

[ACubed]

So I don't know where they have come from, but I've been coming downstairs each day and finding snail trails on the floor and worse, on some of my baby's hanging toys (the baby gym is downstairs). The house isn't damp, I have no idea where they are or what they are living off, but it's incredibly gross and unsettling; I think I'd rather have a mouse!
Does anyone know of a diy indoor trap I can make? The only ones I can find online involve beer dug into the ground so it's at surface level. I want to kill these bastards!

[cozietoesie]

Are you sure it's snails and not S.L.U.G.S?

[ACubed]

God I hadn't considered that, though I guess it'd be the same solution to getting rid? bleughh

[cozietoesie]

From experience, I'd actually guess that it's more likely to be slugs. (I hate them.) They seem to get everywhere.

Do you have a heavily grown garden by the way? (This may be an issue to tackle on all fronts rather than just the house.)

[ACubed]

Garden is quite neat, but the room is at the front of the house so I guess they're coming in from outside...that's so simple I don't know why I assumed it was a lone snail, what a muppet! I'll try some salt outside the house by the grate. Thanks so much for the response.

[cozietoesie]

I'm afraid that it may need more than that......

Have you ever been downstairs in the early hours to spot the blighters? (And gone outside to see what that's like ?)

[ACubed]

Nope, but I'll give it a go!

[cozietoesie]

It might be a good idea so that you can see if you have any sort of problem. You might, for example, have had the odd female who somehow found her way into your house and lived beneath your floorboards delivering young. If you have a whole load of slugs outside, though, that could happen again, though, so you'd need really to tackle both issues.

(Oh - and don't have any plants such as ivy which come right up to your windows. All sorts of things can make it up them.)

[MadSprocker]

We had slugs and navy blue carpets in our first house. I think they lived under the stairs, as that is where the trails led from. In the end we had to catch them in the night, as no sign of them during the day.

[ACubed]

Thanks guys - war is declared.

[midnightmoomoo]

We had this in our living room years ago and what helped was taking up floorboards and scooping out years of built up debris to ensure a good airflow under the floorboards.
We get the odd one now and again but nothing too bad.

[feelingmiffed]

We have the little sods in our house too, every morning there's slime all over the school bags and shoes

[cozietoesie]

Set the alarm clock for 02.15, feeling. You need to catch them in the act.

[Zhabr]

But what to do when you'll see them? Scream and run away?

[loumayfield]

A couple of these slug pellets will definitely get rid of the dirty buggers!

[apatheticfallacy]

I just clicked on the housekeeping section to start my own "Just found a fucking MASSIVE leopard slug in my cellar" thread and I saw this.

There no food (only booze) down there and we have a dehumidifier running so not too damp as far as cellars go.

How to I make sure it never happens again? Salt? Beer traps? burn the house down ?

[cozietoesie]

Apparently, they average 27,000 teeth.

[apatheticfallacy]

I've just put a saucer of beer down for it. How deep does it need to be? Am I just giving it a wild night in?