h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'd rather have creepy crawlies in my house than some human housemates I could speak of...

Can we do a swop then?
I'll trade my housemate, with you.
You come live with me & the creepy-crawlies

Cheers Archangel, i can sleep now

You're welcome

I just can´t see how slugs can be such a big problem. Do they really not die when you pour salt on them?

Trouble is with slugs is that they keep on coming. Unless you're willing to use slug pellets, salt, and pesticides, they're very difficult to get rid of.
It's a losing battle for the environmentally friendly!

Salt is enviromentally friendly.

Yes, but unneccesarily evil.

...and they leave an unpleasant mess as they die

If you have slugs you can't leave anything edible in the bottom cupboards.They seem to also like paper.As I have a very teeny tiny kitchen I rather resent the fact that I can't use these cupboards as I don't fancy having slime trails over ANY of my possessions.

I also DON'T want to use slug pellets(These would apppear to be superintellegent slugs as they avoid the pellets anyway)and salt only works when you use a lot of it.I could try beer traps but I think I'd rather be drinking the beer myself. Anyway as the owner of an African Land Snail I'm rather averse to the slaughter of it's kissing cousins.
Another problem is that they don't just confine themselves to the kitchen but creep into ALL the downstairs rooms.I've been looking for the ultimate humane slug trap but no luck so far.

Salt may leave an awful mess, but so does them creeping around right? But about the cupboards, how about using duct tap on them at night?

They would probably eat it.They even have a go at cellaphane I've discovered.
I do remember a horror tv show which featured death by slugs many moons ago but I can't remember anything else about it.Does anyone else?

Here in Denmark we have had a species of slugs from spain accidentally imported. I don´t remember what was so special about them, but they gave them the name Killer Slugs. Every time I heard it it just conjured up these strange images in my head

The damned things are at it again. I've never noticed them do it twice in one year before.

PP

If you are talking about the ants I have.I believe that it has something to do with temperature and when it is very hot and dry they get to it.Sometimes it can be stretched out over several days.
However I prefer the flying ants to a swarm of aphids.That is even more disgusting although I do remember a swarm of ladybirds one year that didn't impress me much either.What a pity the two events didn't happen at the same time then the ladybirds wouldn't have been trying to take bites out of me and I wouldn't have had aphids up my nose.Yeuch!

I was just trying to find this thread. Because on my way home from work I also noticed the ants were flying off. And even though it was a hot day, it was raining most of the time so not very dry.

I came across two other anthills on my way home where I didn´t see any ants with wings, but there were a lot of ants running around on the ground anyway.

For the past three days or so, I have started noticing them in my house. But they seem mostly dead or dieing, not flying at all just sort-of crawling around slowly (I'm not complaining, it makes it easier to squish them). Just wondering if anyone elses are doing the same? BTW this is in the States.

I have found just a few fat Queen ants in my living room, crawling up the window trying to get outside.
What a difference to all the previous summers in this house, when I was invaded by Queen ants.
The only thing I can think of that's cured the problem for me, is that I had my house cavity wall insulated last year.
I also intend having the house repointed as soon as I can afford it.

Has it been flying ant day today? I've just got home to find that my (block) drive is covered with fat ants (no wings).

PP

Yes, looks like it was flying ants day. Was in the back garden and found loads in the runners below my sliding doors to the garden. Lucky, they couldn't get in. A
few kettles of boiling water sorted them out.