Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Things That are Gross: Wood lice aka Potato Bugs aka Armadillo Bug aka Pill Bug aka Tiny Land Shrimp

I live in a basement. Assuming that bugs would be slightly more populous down here than above the surface of the world I mentally prepared myself to live here.  For most of the year that works.  Not anymore.  shiver shiver.
I have a woodlouse problem. 


They are a land crustacean which are coming in through the cold cellar in great numbers.  The best solution is to not have holes in your foundation.  It is now spring.  Everything is melting and they are looking for moisture, heat and food.  They will find none of these things outside the cold cellar.  Their natural response to this, unfortunately, is to move faster.

This leads to the invasion of my apartment with these little bastards.  I didn't even know this invasion was occurring until I decided to get clever.  For a few days I was noticing that it was necessary to kill ten or twenty per day, so I went to war with them.   My solution, place packing tape on the ground sticky side up.  When they touch it they stick quite nicely. The first day I put down a little strip and caught 30.  This was gross.  I put down larger strips.  Over the last 3 days I have caught 604 little bastards.

I am making a chart.  Will update.  Need more tape.

Strategies:
Block pinch points - tape strip blocks whole door.
Corners - they hug the walls so place tape at corners right against wall.
Holes - tape near any hole in the baseboard which leads to unknown regions.


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