Getting rid of slugs from living room. Possibly coming from underneath boards

JustAnotherSaver

We're getting slugs in our living room. Some of the skirting is off which is leaving a route to the subfloor. For those of you who've read my threads in recent months you'll know there's a fair bit of water down there & you don't need to go into the slugs & damp conditions thing.

The skirting (or some skirting) will be going back on, but we had issue with slugs before it came off. We'd see trails through the diner carpet. There was some in the hall but i suspect they're coming through the door there as the weather strip has seen better days.

Anyone found a successful way of managing them or is it just a case of kill on sight & that's the best that can be done?

maninthestreet

salt sprinkled around???

DRP

We have slugs in our 'new' house: trails on floors, rugs, walls, clothes, toys and on kitchen work tops ... I have also caught many red-handed in the above places too .... Yuk. I have put slug pellets underneath but haven't seen any corpses so gave up on that.

I have revealed the covered up air bricks to increase ventilation, and am lifting all the floorboards bit by bit and digging out the damp mud in the crawlspace. This currently between 0 (joists touching the damp mud floor) and 20cm in depth.

Basically the idea is to make the under floor a less hospitable place for slugs.

I have heard suggested that I put fine mesh over the exterior of the airbricks to prevent them coming in that way, but tbh I think they are living underneath.

JustAnotherSaver

maninthestreet wrote: »

salt sprinkled around???

If that was a serious suggestion, would you throw salt over your carpets? I certainly wouldn't.

DRP wrote: »

We have slugs in our 'new' house: trails on floors, rugs, walls, clothes, toys and on kitchen work tops ... I have also caught many red-handed in the above places too .... Yuk. I have put slug pellets underneath but haven't seen any corpses so gave up on that.

I have revealed the covered up air bricks to increase ventilation, and am lifting all the floorboards bit by bit and digging out the damp mud in the crawlspace. This currently between 0 (joists touching the damp mud floor) and 20cm in depth.

Basically the idea is to make the under floor a less hospitable place for slugs.

I have heard suggested that I put fine mesh over the exterior of the airbricks to prevent them coming in that way, but tbh I think they are living underneath.

Maybe we'll have to get used to it then.

Our sub floor is 1mtr deep & there's no way we can rid the water. This means it'll be permanently damp so will be permanently appealing to slugs.

Fantastic.

nikki2804

We rented a new build which always had slugs in the kitchen. Turned out the ground level outside was to high against some vents in the wall so slugs could just smother in. Boak. A bit of digging and some slabs sorted the issue, moved sharpish though.

DRP

nikki2804 wrote: »

We rented a new build which always had slugs in the kitchen. Turned out the ground level outside was to high against some vents in the wall so slugs could just smother in. Boak. A bit of digging and some slabs sorted the issue, moved sharpish though.

What did you do? can you give a bit of detail please?

lessonlearned

I was going to suggest the same, check the soil levels round your house and remove any vegetation close to the walls which might be tempting them. Slugs are very fond of new tender shoots and plants which of course will be poking through right now. They especially adore hostas.

If necessary lower the soil height and dig out a small narrow pathway next to the house and replace soil with sharp gravel.
Gravel is permeable so won't cause issues with rain water run off.

Slugs cannot cross anything sharp so use sharp gravel not the smooth rounded pea variety. I usually use crushed egg shells in my garden when I want to protect young tender plants from hordes of marauding slugs and snails.

In the meantime for a quick fix, back to the inside of your house.

You can set traps for them. They love beer so fill a dish with beer and leave it on the floor overnight. You should find a fair few drowned bodies next morning.

Setting traps might also help you to work out where the little blighters are coming from and how they are gaining access.

Once you think you know where they are getting in you could try leaving a gravel or egg shell barrier next to the point of access inside the house for a few days. Obviously you won't want a trail of eggshells or gravel for long so that's not a long term solution. However, it might be enough to scare them off and make them look for easier targets.

Slugs - urgh - nasty horrible things. I hate them. They make me shudder.

Gloomendoom

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

If that was a serious suggestion, would you throw salt over your carpets? I certainly wouldn't.

Salt or slug trails? I know what I'd rather have.

I rented a house with this problem. We put down salt everywhere.

Then moved out as soon as we could.
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maas

We used to get slugs in the family house years ago. The trails just came up at the corners of carpet and you woke up early enough you caught the ugly slime balls heading back .... except of course they never make it.

We tried the slug pellets but slugs just moved around them, I even put a row of pellets in front of one and watched with eagerness, except the slug just sniffed it and went the other way.

Salt was more effective. Of course you dont just sprinkle it all over the carpet you put it at the edges where the trails are.

mttylad

Filling the holes they use to get in also helps.