Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Housekeeping

Find cleaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Housekeeping forum.

Original poster

Ugh ugh! We've got a slug!

39 replies

RinkyDinkyPinky · 19/10/2008 19:04

Help! I nearly vomitted on finding a slug trail on the playroom carpet this morning.

Any tips to get rid of the filthy bastard(s). No slug was found.

The trail went back to the hole where the radiator pipe comes through the floor and it probably got under the floor via an airbrick from the outside.

I am putting a beer-trap outside and pellets (at the front of the house where kids won't go).

Anyone else had this problem or know how to use the beer trappy thing.

OP posts:
Pennies · 19/10/2008 19:07

Put a load of salt around the area where you think it got in, ie at the base of the radiator pipe.

McDreamy · 19/10/2008 19:07

Eww, we've got cockroaches - double ewww!

Original poster
RinkyDinkyPinky · 19/10/2008 19:16

Brilliant idea Pennies! Will put it just under the carpet so away from the kids.

McDreamy- how awful! No idea how you deal with them. Are you in UK? I didn't think we get them here.

OP posts:
Flamesparrow · 19/10/2008 19:26

A slug

We have 10,000 of the f*ckin things in our kitchen middle of the night from about Sept - April. Then they stay in the garden and eat my plants

Ew to cockroaches though

McDreamy · 19/10/2008 19:27

No not in the UK. Tis common here, not much you can do except get your drains fumagated periodically - which we do but the odd one still gets in. Turns my stomach!

Pennies · 19/10/2008 21:24

FS - I would have to move out. No question about it. eugh.

muggglewump · 19/10/2008 21:30

I'm petrified of them, I have to put a line of salt round the doorstep so they can't even get on there.
I'd have to leave if one was in the house

cupcakesinthesnow · 19/10/2008 21:36

We had this problem when we moved to our new house. Oh they were VILE. I would get up in the night and go downstairs to find at least 3 of the slimy buggers slithering across the dining room floor. Eventually I used that highly toxic granular stuff and piled it high all around the outside of the back of the house so any slug would have to cross a mountain of the stuff before attemtping entry. We also got our wooden floors sealed as they had small gaps between boards as even the fattest slugs are apparently contortionists who can squeeze through the smallest of gaps.

Original poster
RinkyDinkyPinky · 19/10/2008 21:54

I've just lovingly and liberally applied salt around the pipe holes and rubbed it into the carpet at the edges near where the trails began. Feeling now.

Step 2 will be the beer trap when I can find it, and the slug pellets outside. DH's friend reckons that you can clear the ground of slugs by using the beer thing for a couple of months. But there's no way I'm emptying it. Imagine a beery swill of dead slugs. Defo a DH job. Might go and vom now.

OP posts:
geraldinetheluckygoat · 19/10/2008 21:58

slugs here too, kitchen lounge and dining room. I think getting the floorboards sealed is the answer. You know how mine got in the kitchen? One night I went in there, it was late, there were FIVE slithering accross floor and one really massive one SQUEEZING HIMSELF BETWEEN THE SEAL OF THE DOUBLE GLAZED BACK DOOR.

Don't have nightmares!

geraldinetheluckygoat · 19/10/2008 21:58

cupcakes, was it expensive to get floors sealed?

SheSellsSeashellsByTheSeashore · 19/10/2008 22:01

Same here Flame. We get thousands of the bloody things. Half my house is covered in salt to stop them getting in.

When I cleaned out the cuboard under the sink there were 5 slugs hiding in there (luckily its only the cleaning produce cuboard but still ewwwwwwwwwww)

CandleQueen · 19/10/2008 22:01

You could put crushed egg shells or grit down where you think it's getting in - they won't cross it because it irritates the mucus membranes.

Flum · 19/10/2008 22:01

Yeah ours come in somehow round the back of the dishwasher also front door I think and leave yucky trails everywhere.

cupcakesinthesnow · 19/10/2008 22:04

We did it ourselves with some special gluey stuff and sawdust! It took ages but was worth it. I also crushed slug granules down the bigger gaps before we sealed them in the hope it would kill any hangers on. i sometimes still have horrible thoughts that underneath the floorboards is a slugs haven where they all live and breed!

geraldinetheluckygoat · 19/10/2008 22:31

UGGGGHHHHHH they are awful arent they? I know wnhat you mean, not wanting to know what is under the floorboards. I am liking the idea of the floorboard sealing thing.....will you come and do mine for me, cupcakes?

My mum told me they wouldn't cross coffee grounds so I put a load of them down, but came out one night to find one gleefully crawling over them.........bastard.

Original poster
RinkyDinkyPinky · 19/10/2008 22:55

LOL Geraldine at caffeine- fueled slug party- might make them go faster.

at finding an old choco lebneiz packet in the cupboard in said room. Maybe they were lured in by it. Has now been removed.

OP posts:
Niecie · 19/10/2008 23:05

We have them too - you can be sure that there are more than one.

Our lounge ones are the worst. I have followed their trail back to where they appear to come in and there is no gap. How the hell do they get in?

Just don't stand on them in bare feet. Or worse put your finger on them as I did one day when pulling out a plug in the lounge. I couldn't really see what I was doing until my finger came into contact with something soft and slimy. Ewwww.

Are there more around than there used to be. I went out after dark the other week when it had rained and I was stepping over the things left, right and centre walking down the pavement. I don't remember that in the past.

BlackEyedDog · 19/10/2008 23:12

I trod on one the other morning in the kitchen (accident, I didn't know the bastard was there). It was squirted everywhere. OMG it was disgusting.

DS and I ran around in circles screaming. yukkity.

spiker · 19/10/2008 23:16

You can get copper? strips to put down, for some reason they won't cross them (like vampires??). Seems to be working for us in basement.

Needs to be sufficiently thick etc.

Think this was the one we bought.

www.podington.co.uk/pest-control/gotcha-slug-snail-barrier.html

Original poster
RinkyDinkyPinky · 20/10/2008 08:23

Yuk, yuk, Niecie at touching one and at it squirting BlackEyedDog.

We've put egg shells outside but too early to tell yet. Like the others, I shudder to think that there are some cosying up beneath the floorboards. Hence the plan to tempt them outside to drown in beer.

Spiker- that's great and will form Step 3 of the slug extermination plan to stop them getting back in again.

I'm optimistic today.

And no trail on the carpet this am- thanks to lots of salt.

OP posts:
OrmIrian · 20/10/2008 08:26

You've got a slug

We have flocks of them.

Rocksalt put down just inside the entrance point helps.

SqueakyPop · 20/10/2008 08:30

We get them in our kitchen. They come out from under the washer and drier, which is connected to outside.

I have no idea where they actually live. When our washer leaked, I pulled it out and put a radiator in the slot to dry it out, and the slugs disappeared for a couple of weeks but now they are back.

LazyLinePainterJane · 20/10/2008 08:35

If you have found the hole, fill it. Polyfilla, or that expanding foam if you can't see the hole. yuck yuck yuck. the dog brought one in to our utility room a few weeks ago and it's a horrid feeling.

Flower3554 · 20/10/2008 08:39

I got some adhesive copper tape from ebay and stuck it down at all the entrances, doors and windows.

Touch wood, it seems to be working

Swipe left for the next trending thread