I am sick of slugs INSIDE my house!

[MrsSeanBean]

We have a 1920s brick house.

Slugs somehow get inside the house - mainly at night - and I come down to their horrible slimy trails all over the floor every morning.

I called the pest control people at the council who advised me to lay cracked eggshells outside the air-bricks, but still the problem persists. Aside from laying pellets inside the house (dodgy), I don't know what else to do. Sometimes I come down in the night to get a glass of water and find the slugs crawling around. My patience and sanity is wearing very thin.

(a) Does anyone else have this hideous problem;
(b) if so, how did you solve it?

I have to say it hadn't occured to me to use the garden stuff, it was dh who did it but they've gone now - so who cares. Our main computer is in that room and I had to tip toe across the carpet at night trying to avoid the slugs. Too chicken to pick them up and dh not always here - pathetic really.

We had some success with putting a trail of salt round the floorboard-skirting board join, as you describe, they seemed to get the message after a few days.

What really mystifies me are the trails we get in the hall, that start in the middle of the carpet, go round and round, then finish. Did the little buggers parachute in or what?! Some sort of Mission-Impossible-type abseiling scenario?

heathen, yes, we also get trails that start in the middle of no-where. Makes it difficult to track back to source of the problem. Maybe they only produce slime once they've worked up a good pace or something...?

we got one. it went in the girls' toy kitchen and dd2, age 3, kept saying there was a snake in their kitchen.

barf.

i picked it up on a piece of cardboard and flung it outside.

MrsSeanBean - I got it from [[www.pesthelp.co.uk/weshop/Slugs___Snails.asp here] - they're lovely and really helpful if you speak to them on the phone. Good luck getting rid of the slimy ones.

Thank you for that Dinky

I feel so sick. Just spotted a slug in our lounge. We have been seeing the trails for months, and that was bad enough, but spotting one of the little buggers.....ewwwwwww....I'm so squeamish.

I found one in my dishwasher once. Was a very clean but dead slug. My dishes were covered in slime though.

It took 4 hot washes and a hand wash before I could use the dishes again.

They were getting into my house through the kitchen sink plughole and overflow. I put lots of salt into the plughole and left it all round it as well - haven't caught any of the sick little slimebags for months now.

at Dolcegusto's dishwasher (that's a sick face)

We had a slug problem last year in the kitchen. I would find trails all over the worktops in the morning

FIL took the kickboards off the units and sealed up all the little gaps at the back and then laid slug powder at the edge of the floor. It was behind the kickboards, so safe for the DCs.

I haven't had any more trails on the worktop etc, but funnily enough there was a trail on the mat beside the back door this morning, so I don't know where that wee bugger is coming from. It's a double glazed storm door which in theory, is sealed all round.

Not many things make me boak, but slugs are one of them...

Yuck, eeuuugggghh. I've just come downstairs as I can't sleep & found SIX slugs on the floor. I hate them sooo much. We have a kitchen diner & one morning my son came down all ready for school & trod on one as he made his way to the table for breakfast. Poor thing, it was stuck to his sock, yuck (poor ds that is!)

Help please. I'm determined to watch them now to see where they come from. We're trying to sell our house & I'm worried about buying another one that has the same problem (we live in a 100 yr old terrace). Could probably be persuaded to go for a modern house with no character after this.

I loathe them so much. Can anyone help....and I have 3 young children so pellets would be no good

Oh gross. I'm so glad I'm not the only one with this though. We live in a victorain brick house and have parachuting slugs as well and ones that crawl all over our coats in the hall. I've just had new double glazing and carpet/ wooden floor fitted and still have them I have no idea how they get in but the thought of them in my dishwasher is making me feel a little bit sick.

Euwww, we have slugs in our house too. It is an old house and it seems as soon as I stop them coming on one bit they come in another side. Loads in the cellar at night too, which is damp but I believe cellars are supposed to be damp aren!t they?

is there a definitive solution then? Salt not really doing it for us.

First, it's a relief that we are not alone in having slugs in the house. It's so gross! We have tried slug pellets- not very successful in the long term, or do you have to replace them every so often? Salt worked quite well, and I also pick them up and flush them down the loo... What worked also, due to being a strong chemical I presume, was to spray Vanish all along the skirting boards where the floor is carpeted. Needs to be repeated every once in a while.
It is weird, MrsSeanBean, because what are they doing? Eating? I've had trails on my shoes, halfway up the sofa, on the wall in the bathroom. I don't see the attraction!
Luckily it's only downstairs, but I recoginise the scenario of going down for any reason in the night - I used to prepare myself by actually saying out loud that I would kill any slug in sight, in the hope they'd hear me and run away!
I have no sympathy for them anymore!
Good luck!

We have slugs too, they come up through the gaps in the floorboards, and we have watched one squeeze itself under our patio doors, which told us how not-airtight the doors are!
We can't put anything down on the floor as there is a baby in the house, so we're limited to throwing them outside. There seem to be fewer of them now it's got colder, so hopefully they've gone to sleep somewhere.
They are revolting things, and long-term we hope that once we've a)sealed up the chimney and b) put down new flooring and c) replaced the doors, that there will be fewer of the slimy little buggers.
I don't have a solution, I'm afraid, just a lot of sympathy. Thank God they can't move quickly :)

ewwww all this reading slugs is yuck. i hate the things. I used to always find them in our kitchen and utility rooms and i would forever be collecting them and throwing them outside. We still have no idea how they get in but we live in a victorian house and my OH thinks they must get in some cracks or holes behind the worktops, which i have no way of guarding against. I normally put on some rubber gloves and chuck em outside but when i've found them crawling over the worktops or childrens toys or shoes i have been known to get evil and salt em or chuck em down a loo with bleach. I don't like the thought of using traps such as salt trails, pellets or beer traps because of the children WILL end up messing and touching it!

I HATE SLUGS. simple as. Disgusting slimey things really turn my atomach! I'm interested also in how to dispose of em too. Whenever i throw them out i also seem to get 'others' coming back in that look suspiciously like the ones i throw out....i have no idea how they are getting in and don't want to waste too much time looking for either to be honest because i have better things to do. I now give the buggers a no mercy attitude and either collect em and throw em all in a bowl of salt or just throw em in a bag and tie it up and put in the bin. It may sound cruel to some people to salt em i guess but they are only slugs. Those of you saying you flush em down the loo, i always thought that slugs could survive under water no? I wouldn't want to find the buggers climbing back up the u bend or even worse crawled their way out the toilet and crawling around on the bathroom. Yuck!!

I hate slugs too, sometimes the dog brings them in, yuk.

My house is currently being overtaken by ladybirds trying to bed down for winter.

I used to have the same problem. Used to come down in the morning and there would be three or four crawling around, sometimes eating the poor cats food. They disappeared the day my boyfriend moved in. Came back once while he was away on a business trip and but disappeared again when he got back. I was too embarrassed to tell him about the problem and he is in the dark about it so he has def not been moving them. He is just a human slug repellant I think. Not sure if that is good or bad! I can lend him to you all for a small fee :o

JackBauer - your suggestion is genius

I used to have the same problem in my old flat - and considering I am completely terrified of the things - they made my life a misery

fluffysarah - lol i don't put em down the loo all the time, only when they get in my utility room. And yes slugs do somehow survive in water, and yes i have found them to sometimes crawl their way back up the toilet, hence why i squirt some bleach down after i throw em in and leave for a few minutes to make sure they die before i flush em down.

We have slugs in our kitchen. It is always wise to turn the lights on in the kitchen before getting a glass of water in the night.

Ours have disappeared when we have had to clean/dry under the washing machine, but they always come back, presumably through the dryer vent.

I try not to let it upset me too much now. I don't think they are carrying any diseases.

One way to keep them at bay is to leave the lights on.

if you put slug pellets under the kitchen units, towards the back, it will be difficult for children or pets to reach them, especially if you refit the kickboards afterwards.

If you have a timber floor, they might be getting up from there through the gaps round the pipes. You can put slug pellets down any gaps in the floor, then block them. They are more likely to get in round pipes than through the drier vent, but you can put slug pellets down outside. It will take a while for the local population to go down because they walk around at night, but eventually you will kill all the local ones. You have to keep re-applying after rain.

they need damp, so if you have them in your kitchen, think about water leaks.

I use salt, pretty effective for me if I get an odd one in because my lot leave the back door open at night for the dogs to dash in and out - got LOADS in my yard though but at the moment they are staying out of the house!1 Door closed - too cold!!