Slugs!

Of course you have my permission to tear up your flowered linolium but that probably won't be necessary. :wink:
Snails and slugs will not cross copper since it traps and kills them. Some gardening stores sell copper bands that gardeners put around their plants to prevent slug damage. Maybe something like that would work for you. You could buy copper wire or flashing and put it across the entry point where the slugs are getting in.

I saw a gardening Q&A recently, but can't recall the exact answer. The answer was something like surround the affected area with copper (or something like it) just like the previous posting mentioned and then apply an insecticide called "Sluggo" within the affected area. Someone with gardening knowledge can fill in the details, but it's apparently a well-known treatment (typically to plants and not to houses though). Some improvisation would be necessary to treat a house problem.

In Sunnyvale, CA (Silicon Valley), ants are everywhere. I placed a small plate of canned tuna (about 1 oz. w/ its water) for my wife's cat about 3 feet fr. our kitchen patio door along the glass wall, and within 90-minutes an army of ants found the plate and poured into the kitchen.

Sluggo is not ment for indoor use.

thanks so much for the replies. I will check into the copper suggestion. But don't you think the ugly vinyl is the source of all the trouble.? I need help to convince spouse. barb

I heard that slugs can mistake flowered vinyl for vegetation. You may want to get rid of that flooring so as not to attract the pests. :wink:

We've just moved into an Eichler in Foster City and we've been overrun by ants and spiders. It's so bad that I have to put the bowl of cat food in another bowl filled with water (like a moat). The ants and spiders have also overrun the interior of the house....

Any suggestions?

Thanks, pgg9350

Welcome to the network.

We're in Sunnyvale, and also on the verge of being overrun by ants. We also had to move the cat's food bowl, and food bits left by our 2-year daughter are also attracting ants near our kitchen slider door (we have a courtyard model).

I just began some internet research and so far have only read lay responses; I've been trying to find more professional commentary. The most common remedy is a mix of boric acid and molassas/sugar (in containers to keep children & pets out) - - however, boron in soil will kill plants (apparently) so controlled use is recommended. The next most common suggestion is find the colonies and pour hot water into them (yeah, like the worker ants will lead you to their queen!). After that, the list is long with some people swearing by one remedy while 5 others say it doesn't work.

Let's see what other Eichlers owners have to tell us.

PGG: Windex or household cleaners work well on ants, so if you see an invading force, you can use a cleaner on them (assuming the cleaner won't damage the surface). Someone said that a cleaner will also destroy or mask the ants' scent left to lead other ants to a food source.

We've been fighting the ants for ten years now. Let's see what we've tried. 1) Sealing ant entrances. You can't. Eichlers are essentially transparent to insects. There's so many nooks and crannies they can get through I finally just gave up on this approach. 2) Heavy spray of diazanon around the perimeter of the house. I had great hopes for this chemical approach, but it just didn't work. The ants were back in a week. 3) Ant "stakes" around the perimeter of the house. Ineffective. 4) Household cleaners. Formula 409, interestingly enough, seems to kill ants on contact. This is great for wiping out an infestation, but any thought that it will destroy the trail to the colony is wishful thinking. The remaining ants seem to have no problem finding their way back. 5) Ant "Traps". The grey plastic traps that have a hole with brown sticky stuff in them have proven worthless. The ants are just not interested. HOWEVER.... The orange "Liquid" traps (available at OSH, brand name escapes memory) that contan a Boric acid based sticky liquid work extremely well. The ants go crazy over them, form an ant superhighway to the trap, and a few days later are gone. This is the most effective weapon we've found so far. Hope this helps.
-Andrew

Andrew: thanks for sharing your experience. With respect to boric acid based traps, I saw a recipe to make your own which I cannot recite exactly, but here's the concept. Get boric acid from a pharmacy or another store; mix the powder (?) with molassas; the recipe may call for a liquid base like water to make a paste (I don't know if boric acid reacts with water). One recipe called for heating it to make a sticky paste, but this seems unnecessary. Put the combination in containers with a cover (to keep children & pets out); poke holes in the covers or containers to allow ants to enter. Apparently ants are attracted to the molassas and the boric acid does its thing to the ants. This seems to do what those orange traps do.

Thanks for the tips/suggestions.

I'll try the orange traps.... Though from one of the posts, it sounds like this is a never ending battle (10 years fighting the ants???).

Well one thing that seemed so appealing about living in an Eichler was the feeling that you're sorta living outdoors. :oops: And, I guess living outdoors involves living with all of the flora and fauna one finds out there.

I love our Eichler. I love our Eichler....

I had flashbacks while reading this thread. we just moved into our eichler like 3 weeks ago. I spent seriously hours each day for about a week scouring the perimeter of the house as the ants came in to claim our territory. Finally after I eliminated several times over every ant trail I could see, the ants found some underground entrance I could not see, and I was stumped.

then my wife brought home some Grant's ant baits -they have indoors ones now and boy, did it work disgustingly well. the ants found it within minutes and there was a hugely disgusting trail of hundreds of ants that we tried hard to ignore (fortunately hidden under the M Br sink behind sticky sliding cabinet doors). After about 2 days, we havent seen any more than one or two stragglers around, although that has been less than a week ago. Seriously, we are sooo relieived.

I've tried the little grey raid baits in a previous home and they dont work very well.

JUST JOINED AND AM LAUGHING AT THE SLUGS....HAD ONE THAT LIVED IN THE HOUSE FOR OVER A YEAR ..TOOK A PICTURE OF IT..IT BECAME A PET. COULD SEE IT'S TRAIL OVER DOG'S BED! WE LIVE NEXT TO OPEN SPACE AND EVERY YEAR WOULD HAVE DIFFERENT PESTILENCE IN CYCLE...ANTS, SPIDERS (HUGE),CRICKETS,MICE,POTATO BUGS {UGH} THEY'D EACH BE FAITHFUL TO THEIR YEAR BUT WOULD COME TEEMING IN...ABOUT 7 YEARS AGO BOUGHT A RID EX FROM QVC PLUGGED IT IN AND FOR OVER SIX YEARS HAD NO PESTS (EXCEPT FOR BEETLES FROM CUT DOWN PINE TREES BUT .THAT'S ANOTHER STORY) NO ANTS ...SLUG GONE..NO SPIDERS,ETC. BUT RID EX IS SUPPOSED TO BEGOD FOR 3 YEARS NOW7 CAN'T FIND THEM BOUGHT A SUNBEEM PLUG IN....NO ANTS BUT DOESN'T DO AS WELL ON SPIDERS :)

I just have to tell everyone that my slug problem has been removed! But how you ask? The problem was an old very broken sewer pipe under the slab where the little creatures were living quite nicely (having parites actually) they found a crack in the slab and made themselves at home (my home)every night. We had the pipe repaired and also put a near toxic supply of slug bait under the cabinets. One of those solutions did the trick. This next part is gross: we found the broken pipe after the kitchen sink and a garage sink were backing up with thousands of BABY SLUGS! :) (I warned you) A camera inspection and a lot of $ later we had the kitchen floor (under the cabinet no less)jack hammered up and said pipe was fixed. The cabinet is still on the patio, but the Slugs are gone!