Exterminators

Yesterday, the house on 7th with the Baited Area deathwatch sign.  Today, these pop up next door, along with some large rat traps.  How do you keep your nerve?  I expended a little anxiety by trapping my own vermin.  Not rats.  They haven't been around this particular stretch so much, except when they (the city, not the rats) dug up the whole street for sewer repairs a good fifteen years back. But let's not think of excavation...  No, not rats, but slugs, which seem to have found nirvana in the damp back yard.  Someone recommended beer as a good bait, & I thought this was just another old wives' tale.  But no!  Last night I put out two containers of Bud, and by morning twenty or more of the little bastards had met their end, & lay in their beery, drunken graves.  This was a repulsive sight.  I replaced the beer later today & this afternoon saw an especially large slug perched on the rim of a dish, dipping down for a long, serious drink.  I took a picture, but I think it's too upsetting to show here.  By evening, the poor sot was a goner.