How can i escape a '+' or a '+' in a regexp ?

Hi fellows,

I'm trying to the following query:

select * from areas where titulo ~ '+'  or titulo ~ '*'

and the answer is:

ERROR:  regcomp failed with error repetition-operator operand invalid

I have tried to escape the '+' and the '*'  with a backslash, as
follows:

select * from areas where titulo ~ '\+'  or titulo ~ '\*'but the answer is the same.

If I use the LIKE operator, then I have the problem with '%' and '_'
:-)

As long as the values in the field can contain either '+' or '*' or '%'
or '_'  I need to escape these characters. How can i do it ?

I'm using PostgreSQL 6.5.3 on Linux Red Hat 6.2.

Thanks,

Gabi :-)