[Closed] Slugs

I get them too. I just put them in next door's garden.

They'll eat anything, they seem to be after my bird food, a metal bin for that cut the numbers down a lot,but they'll eat any old rubbish off the floor, quick mop of the porch floor every week or so has almost stopped them now.
Also it's chilly out and they like to be warm

Copper tape across their entry points.

We've had a few in the house - luckily just in the utility room with the cat, but how do they get in? Through the keyholes? The slight gap when windows are on the latch??

You'd be amazed at the size of gap they can fit through - big fat slugs fitting through gaps a few mm wide. We used to get loads. Salt stops them in their tracks but leaves quite a mess and is rather cruel. Check for any holes in your brickwork and pointing near ground level or any gaps where pipes, cables etc enter the house as they'll be coming through there most likely.

Look in the morning for the trail and try to follow it back to their entry point then if possible seal it up. If they're now stuck in the house then get up at about 1/2am and you might spot it and be able to chuck it outside. I've found they can be attracted to a water source so maybe put a dish with water in the living room then check in the middle of the night and chuck them outside.

big fat slugs fitting through gaps a few mm wide.

Yup. The only reason slugs don't have shells is so that they can squeeze through tiny gaps.

Mine get inunder the porch door.
.
Maybe get a hedgehog??

found 2 in the fridge and 1 next to the coffee machine in the past day. worked out that they were hitching a lift under the milk bottles that we now have delivered!

We had this issue with slugs in the kitchen.

We tried all sorts of things, salt worked but wasn't exactly sustainable, copper tape was useless, eggshells etc everything failed.

We knocked the whole kitchen down in the end and built a new one, no slugs!

We get loads. Hate the things. Can throw a dozen out of the house and they're back the next day. Have now put copper mesh over the air bricks and any other potential entry points. It seems to have reduced them a little, although I suspect a number of them are living under the floors and in the walls, so until they're all gone they're going to keep popping up.

Salt stops them in their tracks but leaves quite a mess and is rather cruel.

I haven't resorted to killing them yet because its not something I'm comfortable with doing, regardless of how much I hate them. However, a little bit of reading on the subject suggests they have a very simple nervous system and wouldn't feel any pain. Beer trap seems to be a popular method of disposing of them.

They allegedly eat mould and algae but I've found them eating all kinds of things discarded on the kitchen floor. Found one buried inside a chestnut last night.

Sealing up entry points is all well and good so long as they're not being born inside the house in the first place.

Many many years ago, a mate's dad ripped out their kitchen and uncovered what I can only describe as a slug nest. It was revolting, it was like something out of a horror movie. I have a sneaking suspicion that I had something similar going on at my old house.

You can't make a slug stay in a spider's web

Beer trap seems to be a popular method of disposing of them.

I first read that as 'bear trap' 🙂
That would be harsh.

It'd be 'kin messy. Slug Bukkake.

🤒🤮

Get Guinea Fowl, they'll eat the lot.

Going downstairs once in the middle of the night, I trod on a slug. With bare feet.

Aargh aargh aargh even the memory makes me shudder. Think I'm scarred for life.
The only way I go downstairs now is in a full hazmat suit with a flamethrower.

Aargh aargh aargh even the memory makes me shudder. Think I’m scarred for life.

Years ago, I was strimming my then-girlfriend's front garden.* I felt splashes of rain on my face, looked up to see blue skies, then looked down to discover I'd just strimmed a slug in half.

(* - not a euphemism)

Secondary question. What is the lifespan of a slug?

If can find out how they are getting in, how long are any already inside and hiding likely to live for? I would of thought that a centrally heated house with now rainfall would dry a slug out in no time, but apparently not.

I too stood on a slug... in socks. Makes me dry hurl even now. I was massively hungover at the time.

My shower tray/bathroom is leaking and I'm getting an odd nocturnal visit....

Floors being ripped up next week.... and being sorted.

Secondary question. What is the lifespan of a slug?

They can live up to 2 years apparently...

We get loads of the dicks.

It's made worse as we haven't got kickboards in the kitchen so they come out from under the units presumably getting in from small gaps around pipes.

I've looked for gaps outside but can't look inside without ripping all the units out.

I ejected two the other night at about 3am. Thank God I didn't stand on it.

I think they smell the dog food the dog sprays everywhere.

They can live up to 2 years apparently

That's not good news. 😭🙂

We had slugs. We got ducks. We now have no slugs but are knee deep in duck poo.

I've seen a muscovy eat quite large snails. Whole. You could see the bulge going down her neck like a cartoon snake

Slug sexy time. I have no idea what’s going on.

I hate slugs.

Maybe get a hedgehog??

Yeah, right. I have hedgehogs in my garden every night, sometimes four of them. Problem is, I feed them every night, and the soft-centred crunchy kibbles and calciworms I feed them are much more interesting and tasty than a slug the size of my thumb. I went out to sort out their feeding station the other evening, and there was a hedgehog already waiting for me to fill the dishes up, and it was sitting on top of a big slug! If I’m a bit late for some reason they wait for me, there was one inside the boxes I put the dishes in, actually sat on the empty dish, and a while back I realised I hadn’t sorted out their food while I was on a FaceTime call with a friend from work, she laughed when I said they’d be out staging a protest, so I went out with my phone and a light, and there were two sat outside the boxes, and when I lifted off the tops, a third sat on a plate.
I’m overrun with slugs, ‘cos the hedgehogs won’t eat them.
What I’m going to try are nematodes, apparently they’re harmless to pets, but they burrow into slugs and eat them from the inside - now is the time of year to start treating the garden, you just mix them with water in a watering can and water all around the plants and garden. Then the next thing to try to get rid of are the various cats that come into my garden and shit everywhere. 🤬

What I’m going to try are nematodes

Leopard slugs are the solution, they are territorial and will kill and eat other slugs, and also their eggs.

Furthermore they eat dead and decaying plants not healthy growing ones. I actually feed the leopard slugs in the garden (of which there are loads) by leaving spoilt and rejected lettuce leaves out for them.

And if that wasn't enough leopard slugs also eat shit, so a patch of fox shit in the garden is gone in about two nights.

Unfortunately however they don't seem to have any affect on the snail population, which has been particularly destructive this year.

There seems to be a lot fewer slugs around than there was a few years back (man, that was a hard sentence to get grammatically correct. Please feel free to sort it out in your own mind). The path I take my dog down would just be infested with them whenever it got damp. I could ride my bike down there and run over about 50 slugs every night. Black ones, stripy ones, little ones, big ones... Hardly seen any down there the last couple of years.