In reply to Dick Chambers ) who wrote this
in , I, Marvo, say :

I have lived in the same house in Leeds for the last 33 years. During
the first 27 (approximately) of these years, I hardly ever saw a
snail, although I did have a large number of slugs. During the last 6
(approx) years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of
snails. On a wet evening after dark, if I go to post a letter in the
local mail box, my feet inadvertently crunch a snail every tenth
step, on average. I have just removed and killed about 50 of them
from my bed of petunias, the bed being a mere 5 square metres in
area. The snails are thick on the ground. It ihas reached the point
where I would describe it as a plague.
Is this problem local to Leeds, or has there been the same problem
throughout the UK? What has caused the sudden increase in their
population?
I do not accept "global warming" as an answer -- far too easy,
facile, and probably wrong. With global warming, Leeds nowadays has
the same climate as Berkshire did 35 years ago when I lived there.
Berkshire in 1972 did not have the plague of snails I am experiencing
here in Leeds in 2007.
Snails and slugs love this weather.

See "too many seedlings" thread for some options on how to "deal" with them.

Pro-snail rights campaigners please go elsewhere.