Slugs entering property

[the0ni0nking]

Over the last few weeks, I've noticed one of the rooms in my house seems to have become a visiting ground for slugs.

It is a ground floor room in a 2 storey extension build well over 20 years ago - I bought the house in 2007 and the extension was "tired" in terms of its decor then.

Normally, the only evidence for their overnight visit(s) is the silvery trail that they leave behind. I don't have dogs so any issue around possible pet diseases are not an issue and nor are their any children around the house who might do something they shouldn't should any treatment be placed.

Normally, I wouldn't be that bothered - but yesterday, I actually saw 2 slugs in the room - one around 8pm and another around 10pm and so I thought I'd ask (and I have googled this and read other articles) as to whether anyone else had similar problems and what solutions they found.

Clearly, the slugs are getting in somehow and I've spotted one location that may be the cause but the locations I found the 2 slugs in the room yesterday make me thing that can't be the only entry. I've ordered some mesh that I will use to fill that hole.

Anyone have any suggested remedies they know that have worked - the weather has been wet recently round here but other than that nothing else has really changed and it's a recent problem.

[scrumpyjack]

They don't like crawling over salt or sand. My daughter would put that down outside her kitchen door to keep them out.

[Nimrod103]

Yes, I get occasional silvery trails indoors. The warm humid weather is making them very active. I have no clear idea how they get in. One thought is that I occasionally bring potted plants and cuttings into my conservatory, and they may come in that way. I usually look to see if there are any obvious travellers, but they may come as eggs and subsequently hatch.

[the0ni0nking]

Yes, I get occasional silvery trails indoors. The warm humid weather is making them very active. I have no clear idea how they get in. One thought is that I occasionally bring potted plants and cuttings into my conservatory, and they may come in that way. I usually look to see if there are any obvious travellers, but they may come as eggs and subsequently hatch.

No such green things enter that room (or pretty much the house in fairness). I have put some salt outside which pretty much now surrounds the extension so will see if that achieves anything.

(We also have a salt bin at the end of our cul-de-sac given it's steep incline to get out so I might walk up and get a couple of shovel fulls of that to see if that assists if the limited garage salt I put out fails to do the trick.

[ReformedCharacter]

We put out a number of recycling containers every fortnight, overnight. The wee beasties hitch a ride indoors underneath them or inside them. I try to remove them before I bring the containers back indoors but I suspect I miss a few, in fact I found one in the kitchen an hour ago. I've been trying to train the cat to develop a taste for them but no luck on that front so far.

RC

[bungeejumper]

We used to get them in our old house, whose tiled kitchen floor was below the level of the road outside. There are few things quite so disgusting as treading on a four inch slug in your bare feet in the middle of the night.

I've been trying to train the cat to develop a taste for them but no luck on that front so far.

I realise you're joking, but there are some very nasty diseases that you can get from slugs. Lungworm (aka french heartworm) is a killer parasite for cats and dogs, and humans can catch it too. Don't look it up if you haven't had your breakfast yet.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall once tried barbecueing a slug kebab, which he declared to be rather like eating bits of a car tyre on a stick. I'd say he got off quite lightly, actually. Could have been a whole lot worse. It's a good job nobody eats raw snails. (Do they?)

BJ

[jaizan]

The only slugs that get into my house are the ones that drop off lettuce from my garden.

What I have noticed is long slime trails going up the north wall of the house. I don't know why they crawl up there, but would like to put a stop to that.

[88V8]

Over the last few weeks, I've noticed one of the rooms in my house seems to have become a visiting ground for slugs.....anyone else had similar problems and what solutions they found.

We used to get them in the shower room.They came in where the waste pipe goes through the wall, there is a bit of a gap.
Last month I removed the shower cubicle - it will become a coat cupd - and found that the shower had been leaking where the tiles abut the tray. Below it had clearly been wet for years, rotted support timbers, disappeared plasterboard, loose plaster, although the concrete floor meant that it had looked OK and I expect PO paid a pretty price to have it installed so would not have been pleased to find that the plumber had perched his expensive shower tray on a couple of 4x2s which of course shrank and created the leak.

Anyway, since I removed the lovely damp habitat beneath the shower, the slugs have not bothered any more. How they could tell from outside that there was a nice cosy wetroom specially made for them, I have no idea.

Perhaps you might put a hygrometer in the room, see how damp it is. They won't voluntarily come into a dry space.

V8

[UncleEbenezer]

My previous place, they used to come in to the shower through (I presume) the waste. I removed them when I found them, but didn't let it bother me unduly.

Here I saw one recently, but it's the only time. My guess is it might have entered where a creeper is poking a leaf or two in through the fanlight. Guess it's time for some autumn trimming - though I daresay I'll be reducing the room's ventilation to one fanlight soon, and that'll be the one clear of any vegetation.

[the0ni0nking]

Just to bring this to a (successful) close. At some point, I can't remember exactly when it was, I entered the room to see one of the blighters midway through "the hole".

I'd previously blocked what I thought were all of the possible sites for entry with copper meshing and the entry site was not one of those. It turned out to be where the telephone line enters the house and the size of the hole is probably about 1/4 to 1/3 the size of the slugs.

Anyhow, one small amount of polyfilla later, there have been no such recurrences. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have considered that to be a big enough entry point for them.

[kempiejon]

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have considered that to be a big enough entry point for them.

Hydrostatic skeleton. Molluscs can fit through tiny holes like this octopus challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1nXu6ZkdqE&t=1s

[mtk62]

Ours used to come into the kitchen via air bricks.
These now have mesh vents over them.