Slugs (eww) in the house...help!

[TrixiBuG]

Hey all

We live in a rented end terrace house (circa 1900) and we seem to have a slug problem

I keep seeing the sliver trails all over the front room and kitchen. I have blocked up the gaps between the skirting board and the wooden floor (in the kitchen) but there are sizable gaps between the bottom of the back door and the front door (no weather strips, or draft excluder brush things, and both doors are wooden) but with it being a rented house, I don't think I can go screwing stuff into the doors :/

Also have cats, so leaving salt or slug pelts around is out...

Any ideas? I hate the buggers and the silver trails are horrible

 

[LeeUK]

Get up in the night and check the areas for them. I had problem of finding the trails in the morning and eventually caught the buggers in the act.

When you do find them, put them in the bin. If you just put them outside you'll find the same bugger back indoors again the next night.

 

[Destination]

milk carton, cut hole in side, place beer in bottom they are attracted to it, they will climb up the side drop in and drown, very very effective.

 

[Mark A]

Take the plinths off your kitchen cabinets and check if there are gaps where the floor meets the wall. I had slugs getting in from there. The skirting boards stopped shortly after entering the area the kitchen cabinets were and so slugs were getting between the plastic DPM for the concrete floor and the wall. I foamed the join up as a quick fix a few years ago and it seems to have worked.

 

[Liquid_Entity]

We have worst, we have a silverfish factory in our closet. They come out at night and then we find them everywhere in the morning.

gross

 

[Nightglow]

Salt.

I prefer to use cooking salt, coarser.
Sprinkle some across the threshold, it will kill a slug dead, due to dehydration.

Beer is also excellent for killing slugs, & you know they die a happy death.

 

[Mark A]

You cant get worse than coming down in the night to make a drink and feeling that horrible squishy feeling between your toes as you have just stood on a massive slug .

 

[tom_e]

You cant get worse than coming down in the night to make a drink and feeling that horrible squishy feeling between your toes as you have just stood on a massive slug .

You can, the horrible squishy feeling is warm and comes out of the dog then the smell hits!

 

[boxman2000]

Not sure how to get at them in general areas but copper wire seems to be the most effective for raised beds/veg etc.

Other than that I know people who have used beer/ale traps which they swear by (to be honest it seems like a waste of good beer to me!)

You can, the horrible squishy feeling is warm and comes out of the dog then the smell hits!

Actually you can. The horrible squishy feeling is warm and comes out of a dogs mouth after eating what has come out of it's bottom, then eating it which results in it puking all over the floor. What a glorious morning that was.

 

[tom_e]

Actually you can. The horrible squishy feeling is warm and comes out of a dogs mouth after eating what has come out of it's bottom, then eating it which results in it puking all over the floor. What a glorious morning that was.

Touché

 

[Mark A]

You can, the horrible squishy feeling is warm and comes out of the dog then the smell hits!

You win .


I don't think there is any point trying to kill slugs as they seem to just respawn the next day. I removed 140 (in 2 days) from my exterior house walls last summer and within a few days the wall was covered in them again.

 

[mjd]

We have this problem with our circa 1900 home too.
It seemed to get better last year after we had the whole rear end of the house repointed. They will get in through the smallest of cracks and we had several that scaled the walls to creep between gaps between the fascia boards and the wall.
Salt does indeed do the job, but it makes an ungodly mess and if you have a lot of them I wouldn't personally.
Beer traps didn't work for me, though it was Tesco value, so that may explain it.
You would be better putting pellets down at the source so to speak. In our case this is along the fence line in the back garden. They hide under there until dusk and then come out to play.
Sooner have them die in the garden if possible.

 

[a1ex2001]

Sooner have them die in the garden if possible.

This tackle them at source, slug pellet your garden aggressively don't worry about your cat decent slug pellets won't harm them or birds unless they eat tons and you suppose to spread them thinly.

 

[kay e]

Silverfish - glass jar wrapped on outside with masking tape. Put some bread in and leave overnight. Apparently the silverfish can get in (and really like bread - or just starchy stuff) and can not get out.