Wood-Lice or Slaters

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 514, 29 April 1949, Page 23

Wood-Lice or Slaters

Dear Aunt Daisy, I have two queries for you. First. I had the misfortune to break one of my good dinner knives-one of a set! It broke right off at the top of the handle. Can it be fixed, and if so, how? Also, can you give me a cure for slaters in the house? They come in under the skirting boards, etc, I have tried D.D.T. powder and also fly and pest sprays, right on top of these Takanini slaters; but they just get up and crawl away! Can you help me? You already have done so lots of times over the radio and I find your sessions most helpful and full of interest. "Takanini." I’m afraid nothing can be done with the knife. If the knife-part had simply loosened and come out of the handle whole and in one piece, as Sometimes does happen, especially with big cooking forks and knives, it could have quite easily been stuck into the’ handle again with a certain plastic wood, the name of which I _ give to anyone in this predicament jon receipt of a stamped and addressed envelope. But as it has broken right off, I’m afraid that is the end of it.\ As for the slaters, you have my warmest sympathy, A sure cute has been given me by a gardener. Buy 141b, of Paris Green at a seedsman’s shop-it is quite cheap-and 4 to 6lb. of bran. Mix these together with a little sugar, and moisten the whole with hot water mixed with treacle. Make the mixture into little balls and put them freely about close to your skirting-boards, and underneath bits of wood or little boxes all round the outside of the house as well as their inside entry, just everywhere you think the slaters may come trom. Do let me know how you get on,