..or as my daughter calls them 'woodmice'.
She has an abundance of them in her bedroom and I can't seem to see where they're all coming from. They usually end up dead around the edge of the room and I hoover them up regularly. But the poor little mite (she's only
6) found one in her bed the other night and is now having dreams about bugs in the bed and waking up at all hours asking us to go and check her bed!!Has anyone got a good way of dealing with the little blighters.
Jo
Have a look here:
Bedroom on ground floor?
You need to eliminate their habitat
I think calling a six year old a blighter isn't very kind.
On the other hand, if she's whining about wildlife in her bed perhaps you should take a high powered magnifying glass to her sheets, dust, her skin, the chair she sits on and the like and show her the marvels of Nature ...
Our children used to bring everything they found into the house to show me. I took unusual things into the house to show them.
Just remember that if you use any kind of poison in an attempt to destroy the creatures there could be a risk to your daughter.
Mary
No, bedroom is first floor
Jo
A little unkind I think. My daughter is fascinated by every sort of wildlife...including woodmice! She just objects to sharing her bed with them. I have never mentioned all the other little creatures living quite happily in bed with her....that probably would freak her out completely!
|..or as my daughter calls them 'woodmice'. | |She has an abundance of them in her bedroom and I can't seem to see where |they're all coming from. They usually end up dead around the edge of the |room and I hoover them up regularly. But the poor little mite (she's only |6) found one in her bed the other night and is now having dreams about bugs |in the bed and waking up at all hours asking us to go and check her bed!! | |Has anyone got a good way of dealing with the little blighters.
Woodlice like damp conditions. Look for the damp areas and cure them, or you may end up with worse than woodlice.
The message from "Jo" contains these words:
Kids or the woodlice?
One of ours has taken to keeping woodlice for a day or so in a small tub with some herbiage. He happily observes 'em, gives 'em names etc., then ejects them into the garden. I told him he couldn't keep 'em more than one night each.
The other one didn't like 'em to start with but now she's seem her brother playing with them she's not so bothered.
Like most things that're bothering kids, make it interesting and it'll be less scary.
Get rid of dark spaces they can hide. Carpets, piles of games that aren't much used, ill-fitting skirting boards, broken/damaged/rotten wood, &c
Clear, repair, make good, keep all areas regularly aired.
You need a multi pronged approach to this.
Check the skirting board for gaps and use a flexible sealant to fill where required. Also check the window frame for any gaps.
They do like a damp environment but in my experience they tend to survive in fairly dry places too. If you do have damp then obviously you'll need to get that fixed. Maybe they end up being found dead because its too dry for them in the bedroom?
You can also spray the skirting board with a standard crawling insect spray, try the Raid one, you can get it at any supermarket. It does leave an odour so I suggest you spray in the morning so that by bed time the smell will have gone. The spray leaves being a sticky residue that keeps working for about 10 days or so.
I also find that daddy long legs spiders feed on them when they are small, you just need one in the room and he will do a good job of cleaning them up. The spider will just stay out of the way in a corner so you needn't worry about it.
Ignore people who will possibly reply to your post by going on about how harmless they are and why don't you leave them alone etc. If they want to share their bed with them then fine but most of us don't want them crawling around our homes.
Best of luck.
Careful!
Exactly.
Mary
You can't live in a life-free environment. Even your own body - no matter how clean or even sterile you think it is - teems with other organisms, external as well as internal. If you knew what lived in your eyelashes ... :-)
It's fascinating.
Not intended. Just realistic.
Education is a wonderful thing.
Mary
[snip]
You have damp in that room, possibly damp wood. That's the problem to sort first, both for house maintenance and to remove their living conditions.
The message from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:
But frequently aposite.
I bet you have sanded floors, so easy entrance.
All habitats have a carrying capacity for different creatures, i.e the number of them a habitat can support. It's this you have to reduce by knowing what you're dealing with.
Woodlice (mice) need two things, wood and water. Without water they can travel about 3 metres before dying, that's why you probably never see a live one. From memory I think they are from the same family as lobsters so they breathe through gills and need the moisture for that.
When we had an infestation of these guys we traced it back to a large bush outside our window which dropped lots of dead wood. When it was removed, no more woodlice.
BTW, they are nocturnal, which is why they always turn up in the morning.
Find the damp and eliminate it, then they won't want to live there any more.
Crispy fried and coated in chocolate then?
The message from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:
I have now discovered the corner where they appear to be coming from, although there appears to be no damp there...it's just a cold wall behind a free-standing wardrobe (although what's to say that a floorboard may be not be damp underneath the carpet...that'll be the next investigation). It is at the corner of two adjoining cold external walls (and is on the first floor). I have put powder down in the corner (which is well away from where my daughter sleeps) for the time being, until we can investigate further. Thank-you for all your helpful suggestions - and not so helpful ones!! It's nice to know that there is so much to be said for little woodlice. [My daughter has never been afraid of them (nor any other insect, arachnid or animal)....just doesn't like the feel of them crawling around in her bed. To be honest, sometimes I'd prefer sharing my bed with a woodlouse than a snoring fidgety husband!!]
Jo
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