I think I mentioned that the cottage was a bit damp. Just how damp we found out last night when an unidentified darkish mark on the carpet suddenly started hopping purposefully down the corridor, heading for the spare room. A frog. I may have given a small girlish squeal at this point. The frog was ushered out and a – somewhat half-hearted – search has not revealed any more so we’re a few amphibians short of an actual plague, but it made going to the loo in the middle of the night a rather squeamish experience. Of all the things you don’t want to step on with your bare feet at four a.m. in the morning, frogs have got to be high on the list.
Still, it certainly puts the annual influx of spiders into perspective. Anybody else got frogs?
Town Mouse 
Lego bricks and 13 amp plugs, prongs up is pretty high on my list as well.
Well, those are painful, but at least they don’t wriggle…
I knew someone that had a slug problem due to it being so damp. I hated staying there.
Only on the allotment thankfully as there’s no way I want to be treading on one when I get up during the night! xx
Dom – no slugs so far, maybe the frogs ate them?
Flighty – the allotment’s the place for them. Eating the slugs…
Slugs and snails are the problem here (my veg seem to suffer with them thinking I’m making them a free salad bar 🙂 ) and I occasionally find an unwelcome “house guest” in the kitchen … still, I’ve seen a hedgehog on occasion – wonder if there’s a way I could encourage one to live in my garden -ponders- … the only frogs I’ve seen have been hopping their way along the canal… disappointingly, in the five years I’ve been here I’ve only seen two in total. Ah well 🙂
The idea of stepping on something … squishy… in the middle of the night definitely does not appeal!! (Wonder if it was one of Mr Flighty’s frogs coming for a visit)
🙂
No frogs and toads inside the house.
Shortly after we got Poncho, one of our greyhounds, he picked up a toad on the path. After a lot of spluttering he released it and started foaming nicely. No real damage done to dog or toad but I don’t see him allowing them in the house now.
Now, mice in the house is another story … mousetraps get set in the attic from October 1.
No frogs here either…but we have been inundated with lady bugs before LOL
I keep a pair of those ugly “Crocs” by the bed for midnight forays. You never know what is lurking about. I started using them after breaking a toe on a door that had moved slightly.
Aaron
Wakeup – a nice messy pile of twigs and sticks might encourage the hedgehogs… just don’t set light to it on Nov 5th
Paul – one more reason to get a greyhound… sadly our lease doesn’t allow it
2whls – I would almost rather step on a frog than wear crocs… it’s a tough call. And what if the frog has taken up residence in the croc?
One almost feels like making up some statistic claiming that the average human will have stepped on 1.3 frogs during their lifetime (increasing to 1.6 if they wear crocs) 🙂
Well it would be better than your made up spider-swallowing statistic, anyway. I have never stepped on a frog but I have stepped on a gecko which was in my shoe (not a croc, I hasten to add) and it’s a sensation I’ve never quite forgotten
Our flat is very damp too and getting a dehumidifer has made so much difference, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
The only things I step on in the night are dog chews left in random places!
That’s what the other half’s suggesting as well (the dehumidifier, not leaving random dog chews around)
You are lucky. We used to get random frog visitations in summer when we had frogs and left the back door open all day. They would sit in the kitchen and look confused. The smart dog would chivvy them back out again with no interference from me, while the non-smart dog hid behind the sofa.
But we have had frog plague this year and not a single frog has graced the pond, let alone the house. It’s very sad.
Oh dear. Too much to hope they’re all up in Scotland, I suppose?
A dehumidifier will also make your house warmer. It certainly makes our flat feel less like a cave!!
My parents-in-law own a house in Florida, and they occasionally have trouble with frogs coming up the toilets from the water system! The remedy is apparently to leave the toilet seats down so at least they can’t get out into the house….it has however, led to a new euphemistic saying…”I’m just going to torpedo the frogs…”
Clarkie – what a very disturbing image.
Louise – less cave-like would be good. As would warmer
Hullo! Fellow slow cyclist here.
I used to get slug infestations under the sink in the old house, earwigs on the narrow boat and here I get hundreds of ladybirds, large foreign ones that can bite. But they’re so pretty…
Autumn has always been the animals in the house time, they’ve tended to clear out when the fires get going.
hello stormfilled – good idea re the fires … hopefully no frogs have set up house in our grate yet.
I liked the idea of a pile of sticks and twigs and things (thank you)
this weekend I spent it tidying up my yard (pulling up, pruning, trimming and the like) so I had a fair amount of sticks and things – which are now in a bit of a heap in the far end of the yard; we’ll see what happens
[…] summer in living memory and we were still standing. We’d had floods, we’d even had a plague of frogs – well, frog – and come off more or less unscathed. What, really, could they […]
[…] along the corridor the other evening just as we were thinking about going to bed. We’ve been here before, and I don’t think then that anyone came up with a really convincing explanation for a fully […]