I keep telling my landlord and he keeps "taking care of it", but every couple months it comes back from the dead and invades my living room. Whatever my landlord is doing is clearly not working and he's too incompetent at gardening to actually make it go away- Reddit can you help me actually kill this thing????
by 38RocksInATrenchCoat
17 Comments
You might also have a leak. Makes no sense for a plant to be growing through your wall like that
Is this an outer wall? If so, what does this look like from the outside? Is there a basement or crawl space below you? If so, can you see the ivy at all from there?
Glyphosate (in some formulations of RoundUp; check the label) is a systemic herbicide that will kill the whole plant. If you use it, apply it to any ivy growing outside, though, not in your house.
Roundup concentrate. Medicine dropper in the lowest point you can get to
It’s coming in from outside. It can invade through a pretty small crack.
You must find the plant that is sending in these branches and you must kill it.
Killing it means digging it up, including up as any roots as possible, and then watching for eruptions from the roots that you didn’t get, because it is highly unlikely that you will have gotten them all. You can try “painting” the freshly cut end with a brush killer.
Frankly, it would most likely be easier to move!
Ivy can eat through mortar. Lumber and drywall are going to be no match for it. There is an extensive root system around your house that’s going to keep putting up new shoots. All I can say is thank your lucky stars that you’re not the home owner.
The only way to stop this is to remove the plant outside. Your landlord needs to get it together because it will ruin the house. I’d try to get his permission and just do it yourself so you know it’s done right. Dig the roots out and spray a pre-emergent weed killer on the soil near the house. If you can’t dig it out, get a regular strong weed killer and saturate it. I had the same problem when we moved into our current house, though ours was inside the walls and we got lucky finding it before any major damage was done.
Find the crack it’s growing through, fill crack (from the outside).
Why would you kill it
Get a bottle of roundup, a sponge, disposable plastic poncho, long rubber gloves, N95 or P100 mask, goggles. Put the gear on, go outside with the sponge and roundup. Hold the sponge away from you and spray it 10 times with the roundup. Go inside and sponge the green leaves until they seem moist, but don’t squeeze the liquid out on the floor. Throw away sponge, wash gloves with soap, remove poncho and throw away, wash gloves again with soap, wash goggles, remove mask, wash gloves again with soap. This is a safe way to handle roundup. Do not use around pets, birds, fish or bodies of water.
Give the plant 2 weeks to die. If it doesn’t respond, you may need more concentrated roundup/glyphosate.
Find the source of moisture that allows it to grow.
That is knotweed. The ONLY way to kill it is with Round Up and it has yo be done at the right time of year. Google it! Knotweed is a huge problem wherever it pops up and will tear apart concrete overpasses. In fact, in Britain you cannot get a mortgage if there is any on the lot.
Did you start a game of Jumanji that you have yet to finish?
*ALL HAIL THE ETERNAL IVY*
Boiling water will kill it good
Life will find a way…
Demand it pay half the rent. That’ll get rid of it!