Kitchen Garden Forum

My son's house was built two years ago, and the lawn turf in the small back garden was laid (we think) on just a thin layer of topsoil with the usual building rubble left underneath.

The lawns of the surrounding houses have struggled from day one, with lots of yellow areas. However, my son's was ok until recently, but over winter it has all gone really thin, and totally died around the edges where it borders the fences and paved patio.
We were blaming this on bad soil/drainage, but this morning my son found his garden absolutely full of starlings, and realized that they were having a real feeding frenzy on leather jackets (and/or chafer grubs). The lawn must be really badly infested.

My question, to any lawn experts here, is, do you think that the problem is entirely due to the grubs, or could the soil conditions be at least partly to blame too?
Any advice on what he should do would be really appreciated.

I'm not an expert on lawns (I just have grass) but a friend has an immaculate lawn that gets no end of chemicals thrown at it but a couple of years ago patches started dying and looking really rough. He called a company in and they treated it for leather jeackets and I think he said the bodies came to surface but it cured the problem. He opens his garden for charity and keeps it immaculate so was worried his standards were slipping.

Thanks, Geoff.
I have a feeling that my son would be reluctant to pay someone to deal with the problem, but we'll see! At the moment, he is thinking of treating it with nematodes, but I think he will have to wait until late summer to do that. Luckily, because it is only a small lawn, it shouldn't cost too much. Meanwhile, he's wondering if it's worth putting some more grass seed on there now.