20210531 Slugs
When you open the front door there is a fuse box on the left. It contains the fuses and the meter for electricity, gas and water. We also used it in the past as a last resort storage box for small stuff, but it was such a mess that we couldn't reach the fuses anymore and needed five minutes to clear stuff when we needed to reach the meters. And then the slugs appeared. At the bottom of the closet are holes through which the gas, water and electricity pipes go down into the crawl space under the house. That crawl space is wet and dirty and it is the habitat of brown slugs. They liked the mess in the fuse box and crawled up and then found a small hole at the bottom of the closet and crawled onto our floor. Every morning when we came down the stairs the first thing we saw were the silvery traces on the ground where the slugs had crawled along during the night. I looked into the closet and decided to clean it up, but I could never find a slug in there. Until one night I couldn't sleep and decided to go down and watch some tv. When I stepped down the stairs onto the ground floor with my naked feet I felt a wet squishy substance as if I had stepped onto a piece of mango that had dropped to the floor. But I knew we had not eaten mango the night before. When I turned on the light and inspected my foot I saw the remains of a big brown slug between my toes. I admire all creatures in the world, but there is no love lost between me and brown slugs since that night. I don't mind them when they're in the garden or in the crawl space beneath my house, but this was one bridge too far. I would not accept this invasion. This meant war. That was three years ago. Unfortunately it turned out to be a tough war that was not as easy as plugging a couple of holes. The slugs seem to be winning.