SLUGS

[wintertimeisfun]

last few weeks come downstairs to see one or lots of slug trails in the front room & always in the same spot. dh and i have turned the room upside down but can't find the critters. i have found three, by chance and not at the same time, slithering up the wall (i hate put them outside with a spoon). i have bought this slug catcher thing that you put beer in but the thought of drowning them and having to empty the bastard makes me feel sick so have not done it. Someone else suggested putting half a grapefruit in the front room. we have a cat so i don't want to put down any poisons plus poisons would really hurt them...i would prefer them to die drunk & happy :0) anyone else had this problem

[SoftKittyWarmKitty]

at slugs bursting

[doyouwantfrieswiththat]

what you need is a hedgehog, not sure how easy they are to house train......

[plentyofsoap]

Do hedgehogs have loads of fleas though? You could charm one into your home with bread and milk (apparently)

[wintertimeisfun]

balls to a hedgehog, i would blood LOVE to adopt a toad. bloke next door has a pond and in the summer we get lots of frogs in the garden. don't think it would work though, not to mention our cat would terrorise the poor blighter :)

[wodalingpengwin]

If you know where they're coming in, strips of copper tape. More expensive but less messy than salt.

[ChocsAndBedsocks]

I had this too. we have an old house and wooden floorboards and I couldn't be sure how they were getting in. I heard that copper tape worked and I tried putting that down - it didn't help. Then I bought a can of slug and snail repellent spray. (I found it on Amazon). Since using that, I have not had a single slug in the house! It is safe to use around animals and children too so no worries there. it is no nice to go downstairs in the morning and not wonder if there will be slug trails to clear up.

[doyouwantfrieswiththat]

ooh no not bread & milk...catfood will charm a hedgehog (they can be a bit flea ridden and smelly but on balance slugs vs hedgehogs......)...apparently badgers also eat slugs and you can tempt them in with peanuts but I hear they're feisty beggars.

( winter I have heard of cats eating frogs but they don't stay down for long.)

[cozietoesie]

Beer traps. They'll head towards them for some distance. (To fill the traps reasonably cheaply, get Basics Beer from a big supermarket or chat up anyone you know who works in a local pub and get a bucket from the slop trays.)

Then - once your traps are in position - go out at about 12.30 or 01.00 when it's fully dark, armed with a jam jar or two half filled with seriously salted water, kitchen gloves, a pair of long metal or plastic tweezers (available from ebay or a hardware store) kitchen towel and a big torch.

Identify the blighters in the torchlight (they'll be heading towards the beer traps), pick up with tweezers and drop into the salted water jam jar. Every so many slugs, wipe the tweezers clean with some kitchen towel and discard. When the jam jars are full, leave somewhere by (for dumping in a drain the next morning) and go to bed.

The beer traps should last about 2-3 days each. The salted water should be so salty that there's a layer of salt at the bottom of the jam jar. Cheap Basics salt from a supermarket will do it.

No dangerous chemicals and really works. Sorry if TMI but it looks as if slugs are going to get much worse with the advent of this new breed from the continent.

[cozietoesie]

Oh - and repeat regularly.

[doyouwantfrieswiththat]

foreign slugs you say..I'm off to phone the DM this is an outrage!

[cozietoesie]

Oh my!

[hallowisitmeyourelookingfor]

Can they really flatten themselves to fit through tiny gaps? I am clearly a slug dunce and have been living in ignorance

[SoftKittyWarmKitty]

The repellant spray sounds good. Do you have a link Chocs?

[MrsWedgeAntilles]

We had the same problem and I hate slugs, I can't even walk the same road they are on. This is what we did:
Don't put the beer in the house, Cozietoes is right, the beer draws them in. Go out side and see if you can work out where they're coming in. Get some jam jars or similar and fill them 1/3 full of beer and bury them up to their necks in the earth. The slugs fall in and drown. I couldn't empty them and I couldn't look at the drowned corpses so I filled the jars up with earth and then dug them up and threw them in the bin.
In the week we did it MrWedge says he saw about 100 in the jars he threw out and we had no more slugs in the house.
I'm not sure if ours were foreign or not but they had a big orange frill round the bottom.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

I have tried beer traps and not caught a single one.
Maybe we were using the wrong beer. It was extra strong Belgian beer dh was given by a student and we knew we weren't ever going to drink. Maybe normal cheap bitter is better?

[MrsWedgeAntilles]

Also for the love of God do not put salt on them, they writhe and rear up like they are screaming, its absolutely hideous

[maddening]

They seem to have specific paths that they follow - when I visited my friends house we used to smoke outside the back door and there was a path they took - always the same and alway multiple slugs

[MrsWedgeAntilles]

I think we used Red Stripe. The secret is to have the neck flush with the ground so they fall in.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

Yes, I had the neck flush with the ground.

[ChocsAndBedsocks]

Softkitty - I've never done a link before but I'll give it a go...

Slug spray

As I said, I tried tape too, but it is a pain when you can't be sure where they are coming from. With the spray, I just went round the bottom of the skirting board with it on the side of the room where the trails were and that has done the trick. It is a bit sticky until it dries so I use it last thing at night.

[MrsWedgeAntilles]

Maybe your slugs were doing Sober for October and mine were pissheads

[cozietoesie]

\link{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24593015\Look similar} MrsWedge ?

[MrsWedgeAntilles]

Yes that's the fucker, that made me boak a wee bit.