SLUGS!!!

[Rowlie]

We have a serious slug problem in our Victorian house which is really getting me down. There is a gap between the floor and skirting boards around the most of the rooms downstairs where they must be getting in. All floors downstairs are wooden. We were first alerted to the problem by our cleaner who spotted hundreds of trails when mopping. We have since tried taping up all the way along skirting boards, but they still manage to get in somehow. I know they can shrink to a really small size to get through even the tiniest gap. Plus our builder said the taping was bad for ventilation in the house.

I’ve even tried brushing salt under the skirting boards which did kill a couple. We have a toddler and dog so can’t use any kind of killer, not that I’m sure that would work long-term anyway.

It’s making me not want to live in the house anymore, we only bought it two years ago. I hate to think of them all coming out at night downstairs. We often find slimy residue on our sofas, dog bed, kids toys etc, it’s horrid.

I don’t know where they are getting in from outside, I guess there are living under house, and coming through vents.

Besides getting a new floor, is there anything I can do?

Freaking slugs!!... I had to go yo war with mine, after driving myself insane trying to slug plug everywhere and getting nowhere for days.... I took the battle to the garden completed covered the boundary all the way round the house (kinda like the witches salt circle) ✌️with the tuff stuff, it wasn't pretty bags of sizzled slugs so gross but it sorted it out!!.. xx Good luck

Slug pellets is the way to go. Put them along the edges of the room. After a few days they will stop coming in. I swear the slimy buggers talk to each other and chat about where to go / where not to go!

I have them too - it’s awful. Things improved slightly when I replaced plastic air vents with plaster ones with a rodent mesh, but they still come from underneath the kitchen cupboards. I live in an old house which isn’t on a slab so think they are underneath the house and also underneath a patio at the back - my little patio garden is teaming with slugs and snails for some reason. I am also going to massively dose up the garden with nemetodes.

Leaving a light on at night does help btw. My hallway and kitchen light stay on every single night.

I used to get them too. My house is also a Victorian terrace with damp issues. I am sure they are still there, under the house, but I have a better floor now so they can’t get in. But before then I did try to identify obvious entry points and sealed them up, which improved things. A low point for me was when I discovered a trail on my kitchen work top!!! Over the years I have had so many unwelcome visitors - slugs, ants, flies (from something dead in the chimney), mice…

This is the stuff. It goes into the soil and if you apply repeatedly it will get rid of the slugs without horrible chemicals or ripping up your floors.

Thanks all. We are going to use a UV pen as @BringItOnxxx suggested, to start with, then we’ll decide our next steps from there.

Yep! I’ve never had an indoor slug problem, but it’s definitely the way to handle it since is kills baby slug in soil and halts the lifecycle.

I started feeding the hedgehogs a few years ago, I put out water and cat food and it attracted slugs, but they were eaten by the hogs.

Could you try dried cat food around the outside of your house?

As you can guess from my user name, I have a problem with slugs in my bedroom - I live in a bungalow! I have seen the buggers three times this week crawling up from the edge of my carpet by the skirting board. All the bungalows near by have a large void underneath with an earth base, which get flooded when it rains a lot as the water table is low. That is what it is designed to do, building permission was only granted for bungalows not two story houses because of the wet land.

I never get up at night without putting the light on first and I look under my bed every night before going to sleep! They slugs are definitely squeezing through a gap by the skirting board as I can see them - they seem to be baby ones, very black and worm like although in previous years I have had an odd fat one wandering around! My cleaner moves my bed out every week to clean behind it thoroughly but has never see slug trails there so I’m pretty sure they get in under the windows. There is not a flower bed anywhere near the front of the house, just the lawn about three feet away across the drive.

I went to war this year and bought copper tape, copper mesh and a deterrent spray. The tape is attached to the bottom of the skirting board and the mesh is stuffed into the very slight gap. Then every few days I spray the area but it smells awful so I don’t use it daily. But they still get through, I removed one last night as I could see it popping through from my bed! The bedroom light was still on so that did not deter it!

My house was surveyed last year because I was a bit concerned about some new cracks in the plaster so wanted to look into subsidence - none evident thank goodness. The surveyor went into the void as it has a 6 foot head height clearance and said there was no evidence of slugs. I also had a new, thick carpet fitted earlier this year and had a look at the floor boards once the old carpet was removed, there really isn’t a gap around the skirting boards that I could fill but I guess the slugs are still able to squeeze through.

My plan today is to try to wedge the copper mesh in more firmly at the edge of the carpet and renew the slug pellets I have on the drive under my window. I don’t really want to put pellets inside my bedroom as I don’t relish having exploded gunk from the slugs on my new carpet! I think I will research the product mentioned above to see it it’s suitable to be painted on the skirting boards and maybe try that.

I really don’t know what else to do, except move house! So I totally understand how the op feels about her problem and just wish I had the solution.

They're gross. I'm in a Victorian terrace and we used to have big problems. Not a damp issue, it's just a clay type of soil and they get everywhere.

We got floorboards up, membrane and mineral wool insulation down between joists, floorboards back, ply layer on top, glued down flooring on that (that luxury vinyl stuff) not as pretty as floorboards but warmer and so far (it's been a year or so) only a few very tiny slugs can find their way in.

We checked the air bricks before doing it. Haven't noticed any extra damp or anything, I guess we'll find out if the floorboards suddenly rot! :)

Before that they got everywhere, I remember feeling I would go doolally when breastfeeding or a sleeping baby on my lap and I'd see one climbing up the wall, or guests would come and sleep on the sofabed and we'd have to tell them not to leave anything on the floor or it would get slimed, etc etc

You can find their entry/exit points if you ever wake in the night, come in and put the light on and they'll head for their exit points. Fricking gross!

@Monster80 @User1367349 so we have stones all around the perimeter. Do I need to dig underneath them and put the pellets in the soil?

We used ecofective (think that’s the name, it’s green and on Amazon) around all of the skirtings, sprayed nightly and then a load of beer traps in the kitchen and outside the back wall.

They went in a couple of weeks and we haven’t seen them since 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞. Nothing quite like a slug on a bare foot!

Is their turf/lawn/flower bed after the stones? I would apply to the soil nearest to the building or potentially dig away the stones (until you find soil) then apply the nematodes to the soil and wait and see if it does the trick.

And I would probably go simpler even than that. You dissolve the nematodes in water to apply them, so I’d just water all around your outside space and trust them to burrow into the right spaces (they are microscopic worms)

Hmm, just had a thought! Maybe I could get someone, like my son, to go into the void under my floor and water some nematodes into the soil base. It’s definitely something to look into.

If you think they are coming up from there, then definitely

The thing about nematodes is they clear slugs, which then leaves a nice slug-free space for slugs to move into

Nematodes are a predator of slugs, you apply them during slug season (generally every 6 weeks). I’d say it’s definitely worth a try if slugs are invading your living space. You of course are more than entitled to your opinion. Nematodes also are relatively cheap and easy on the planet.

Can you use this in the house with a cat?

The bottle says child and pet safe.

I had them in a student flat once, they were literally everywhere in the morning where I would have to go round and pick them all up using a roll of paper towel and a plastic bag. We found a lot were living on the underneath side of our sofas. We moved out in the end (leaving the sofas behind). Sorry, no advice other than to move I guess (and check underneath your sofas).

Thanks I'm going to try this

copper slug tape

Ugh!

We use beer traps too. Dh deals with them in the morning🤢