A couple were horrified after moving into their new home and spotting a tiny plant growing on the skirting board but when they lifted the boards, it quickly became a “nightmare”
The plant was growing inside the house but it was a sign of a much bigger problem (stock image)(Image: Svetlana Iakusheva via Getty Images)
A new homeowner feels overwhelmed by their property just months after moving in, having uncovered a “disaster” lurking beneath their floorboards.
House moves rank among the most stressful life events a person can experience. When purchasing a property, these anxieties can be amplified by the seemingly endless paperwork, intimidating surveys, logistical hurdles and more.
One couple believed they’d struck gold when they secured their dream home several months ago; a 1904 Edwardian property. They commissioned a survey and it was noted that a small plant was sprouting from the skirting board in front of the bay window.
They “didn’t think too much of it and thought it managed to seed itself in the slightly loose skirting” but soon discovered “how wrong” they were. On the Reddit forum Gardening UK, they posted under the title “my Mahonia nightmare – unwanted indoor plant – how to eradicate?”
They shared: “In the front garden/drive, there are quite a few Mahonia plants (Oregon Grape, according to the PictureThis app). Very early on, we removed one nearest the house, but we uncovered the true disaster hiding under our floorboards.
“Upon taking the radiator off, we knew something was seriously wrong. After lifting the flooring and floorboards, we uncovered the disaster. Turning to my trusty PictureThis app again, it said we had Swamp Horsetail! Upon much googling, I was truly scared as it is a nightmare to get rid of.”
The couple explored their property and discovered “the stems have found their way through the air gaps between the bricks”, which means they “don’t have access to it”.
After “chipping off some of the rendered plinth at the front of the house”, they located the entry point and uncovered “a bright yellow blob with a stem of the same type of the spaghetti inside that was thankfully misidentified as horsetails”.
They turned to Reddit for guidance on how to eradicate the unwanted plant. Having removed as many of the stems as possible, they’ve relaid their flooring and are hoping to avoid lifting it again “until necessary”.
They went on to say: “At some point, we’re going to insulate the joists and renovate the room at which point we can confirm [the plant] is dead, so we can only access the root/stem from outside, as the main plant has been removed.
“Do I have to do anything else, or should I use some type of poison? I understand they self-seed, so we will make sure to remove any seedlings.”
Gardening and horticultural enthusiasts were eager to weigh in with their opinions. Many emphasised the necessity of using weed killer and removing all traces of roots, but one person highlighted a worry regarding the brickwork.
They said: “The plant has managed to get into the house via loose brickwork in the wall, if that was secure it wouldn’t have rooted there. If I’m understanding the image correctly the root is not that big, it obvs had shoots growing in the dark under floor boards, the root in the wall looks relatively small.
“Next steps would be to contact a builder to assess the wall and how it got in in the first place, and apply some root kill product, I’m not up on what specifically to use.”
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