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19th November 2010
Aka Vs. The Slugs - Part II
Part VI – The Chlorox Counterattack
It's hard to see from the picture, but there was a silvery trail along the edge of my bathtub... and I believe that to be the legendary "slime trail" that slugs are famed for leaving behind. I Chloroxed my entire floor, ceiling, doors, walls... etc. Basically I chloroxed everything around. I was hoping that even if the buggers like a clean place, they are not big fans of harmful chemicals. So far, after multiple complaints, my landlord had only made a suggest for me to put insect poisons all around my house - NO FREAKIN WAY!!! I'm not putting anything that has the word "poison" in it inside my house! So that was moot. I only hoped that the fact that chlorox repels humans will work on slugs as well.
How wrong I was! The spiders took a recess but after two days of peace, I found slugs happily hanging out all around my toilet again! So obviously I need to seal up those giant cracks. Ok, perhaps you would say that should've been my first response, but I hadn't had the chance to grab some sealant and the landlord was being unbearably slow to respond. There MUST be a way to force them into action.Part VII – Slime Pickings
Finally, I blew up upon seeing two of them frolicking in my bathtub. I picked up the buggers and put them into a gogo no koucha bottle that I happened to finish and let them hang around in some salty liquid. By the time I was able to show them to my landlord, they were already somewhere in sluggly heaven, but at least sticking the bottle in my landlord's face seemed to have some profound effect in convincing her that I am not overreacting to this matter, that finding these little buggers in the same living quarters (that you call home) is disturbing to put it lightly!
Part VIII – The Landlord Intervention
My landlord got some sealant and everywhere there was even a small crack, he just oozed them into the cracks and sealed up everything visible to us. Of course, there may be cracks still, but as far as we could see, there was nothing that a bugger could squeeze itself through. The landlady also went and "drugged" her entire storage room because it is on the other side of my bathroom and she suspects that's where the big happy family of slugs was residing. She promised that after this, I should see no trouble.
Part IX - Parting the Salt Sea
Ah how wrong I was. I had a week of blissful silence before the buggers started reappearing again. I had no idea where they were from, but I was praying that there weren't some invisible holes letting them in from the slug netherverse. I suspected either they laid some eggs in my bathroom (*barf*) or they were probably coming in through the pipes. A friend of me let me know that this was very possible especially in older cities, which San Francisco certainly qualified as. Since that is the case, the only way I could do something about it is to make sure there was something heavy over the hole in the sink enough to keep the unwanted visitors out. I have been doing precisely that. I also put tons of salt all around my bathroom. I had avoided this for the longest time because I didn't want to be treading all over salt every time I went to the bathroom, but that was still more pleasant then the prospect of encountering (or squashing) one of the little buggers in the middle of the night.It has been about a week and so far so good. But as you know, life always like some twists and turns so I don't know if I should expect a re-emergence of the buggers soon. But hey, we can always keep hope alive, right!? Wish me luck! -
15th November 2010
Aka Vs. The Slugs - Part I
Part I – The Unceremonious Encounter
Upon my return from NYC, what greeted me was rather an unsightly surprise - Slugs had invaded my bathroom. I was tired from my flight and the scene of a few of the slimy buggers hanging out around my little bathroom nearly drove me over the edge (I did scream... and scream...). Now as you can see, my bathroom is not what you would consider messy. I actually consider it quite tidy and reasonably clean. SO WHY!??!??!
Apparently, these little buggers are quite fond of clean bathrooms. So it doesn't really matter whether or not I keep my bathroom spic and span. So friends, take heart in that at least if you find these critters in your bathroom, it doesn't mean you've become a slob, it simply means you may be so clean that you've charmed yourself some new housemates!
Part II – The Phantom Nuisance
Throughout the next week, I went through the unenviable torture of not knowing what to expect when I step into the bathroom. Once, I even caught one of the buggers on my toilet seat - when I stepped into the bathroom, it turned lazily and gave me a slightly puzzled look, as if saying "um, this is my turf now." Let's just settle this - the buggers themselves are not harmful. In fact, apparently they are great at removing stubborn mold all around the bathroom. HOWEVER! The mental effect it has on someone who has NO love for sickeningly slimy slithery creatures is rather unbearable. Imagine finding them all over the bathroom, bathtub, sink, and on the walls... there's no escape! So I had to do something about it!
Part III – The Beer Trap
I went through many websites and obsessed over the best way to get these buggers out of my humble abode. I finally settled with one of the ones that my friends (and many websites) recommended - the beer trap. This entails putting some bear (had to borrow a bottle from a housemate since I'm not a particular fan of beer) into a shallow dish, and a friend told me to put a drop of soap on there just to break the surface tension so that the buggers don't get out. Well I have to say this method has limited efficiency because it is difficult to find a dish shallow enough that the buggers could climb in them yet still can contain enough beer that the slugs will drown on them. The best I could do was finding two of them hanging out around the beer dish and then getting rid of them (either by dumping them into the toilet or into the garbage then immediately taking the garbage out. I soon had to give up on this idea because the beer was (probably) losing its fragrance, which would make it useless for attracting the buggers and it was also getting annoying having to move the dishes whenever I took a shower (since they were placed right next to my bathtub).
Part IV – The Unexpected Opponent
Unfortunately for me, apparently during my absence other little critters aside from the slugs decided to move into my bathroom. This particularly one was spiders. Spiders are marginally more bearable than slugs, but make no mistake, they are NOT what I enjoy sharing my bathroom (nor my bath) with! That's it! I'm going to find out where they're from and get rid of them!
Part V – The Poop trail
So I spent a few days trying to find where the source of the problem was. One main clue of the visit of these buggers was a particular poop trail that they left. At this point I was developing an amazing eye for slug poop, something I did not imagine myself doing three weeks ago. Alas, life likes to throw you a couple of slugs every time you think things are going your way. So what I ended up doing was follow the poop trail(s) and also some slivery trails that I suspect were left by them critters when they were moving around. I traced them back to a few rather wide cracks next to my bathtub. It's time to fight back!!!
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Sze K. Aka Chan's Posterous
歸去，也無風雨也無晴。
Walking the Fool's Journey.79316 ViewsTwitterFacebook -
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