Escargot under the Door

The past few days, on the inside mat at the front door, I see the slim trails of a snail. When a friend came visiting I asked where they thought the snail was gaining entry. They believed through the gap at the back of the adjacent meter closet in this small hallway. I plugged the gap with newspaper expecting 100% success, but next morning, more snail-trails. Looking more closely I saw another ‘gap’ outside the meter closet so plugged that with recycled plastic. The next morning: snail trails. Outside my front door, I removed the free-spirited-ground-hugging flowers growing up to the stoop. Next morning: inside snail trails. I even got up one night in the dark, to see if I could “catch the action”. No luck, saw nothing. I sprayed the front stoop and the mat with glass cleaner– that seemed to help. A few days of no slim. Then I thought to ask the friendly workmen, whom I know, repairing the second-story porch on the house kitty-corner from my backyard. Calling up to them I explained this unique, irregular phenomena I was experiencing. “OH JA”, all three said in unison, “That happens all the time!”. And I thought it was only ME. The horticulturist owner of the house, climbed on a ladder to reach the roof of the shed at the end of my garden, placing a box of ‘slug-bait’. I retrieved my very long ladder, ironically with three snails clinging to the bottom rung and put it up against my side of the shed to reach his proffered box. Took it, climbed down, made a small bag of bait for myself, climbed back up, replaced the box which he then climbed up from his side to retrieve. Back on the ground my next question. “Do I put it inside the door or outside on the stoop?” They did not have an agreed upon answer. The snail-bait claims not to poison the neighbors dogs and cats but in the interest of the shared cat that comes for his daily ration of fish, I opted to put it inside the door. At present I have two little piles of green snail-bait grains sitting untouched.