Snail, snails, snails

[Walter R.]

Due to heavy rains in Southern California last winter we have a bumper crop of snails. Our home is surrounded by aptinia iceplant. Apparently they multiply in there and then crawl all over the house, especially the windows and walls, leaving slimy trails and their empty shells.

What is the best and cheapest way to get rid of them permanently (this summer at least)? I have tried the perimeter liquid snail bait. It worked in prior years, but the snails may have evolved or they are stepping on each others bodies to get to my windows.

[Janet Baraclough]

The message from "Walter R." contains these words:

You must be doing something very interesting in there :-)

Snails grow quite slowly, so you can make a fast impact on a local population by collecting them in a bucket for rehoming. Damp evenings are often best. Children can be bribed per results. My sister lives in a snail nirvana and finds a bucket campaign each spring keeps numbers down enough to make gardening possible.

Janet.

[David Ross]

I suggest the use of carnivorous decollate snails, which are legal and available in southern California. See . Note that decollates are NOT legal in northern California, where they feed on native snails that might be endangered species. The brown snails that create such destruction in southern California are not native and thus not protected.

[RAINDEAR]

[RAINDEAR]

'rosy' predator snails are supposed to devour the escargot-type snails and when their food source runs out, they're supposed to just die. there is a company in cali which sells them (can't remember the company, sorry....CRS has been extremely bad since massive humidity hit the northeast), but google it. use the search words: snails eating snails that is where i got the above website!!!!

[David Ross]

The cited URL displays only the picture. Links to "Description", "Biology", etc display nothing.

[David Ross]

The decollate snail (Rumina decollata) described on the same Web page is considered superior by commercial citrus growers for controlling the brown snail (Helix aspersa). The latter is a serious orchard pest in citrus groves, girdling and killing trees by eating the bark.

The release of decollate snails is restricted to certain southern California counties. They are prohibited in northern California because the prey on endangered native snails.

The brown snail is NOT a native, having been intentionally imported some 150 years ago as a source of escargot.