Get rid of woodlice in the bathroom in a day: TOP 5 effective remedies

Reasons for the appearance of woodlice in an apartment

Woodlice are representatives of crustaceans. They have an intimidating appearance. They have a small oval body, 7 pairs of small legs, as shown in the photo. They come in marble grey, black and white. On top of the body is a shell consisting of 8 segments. The insect has two eyes, partially hidden under the shell, and a pair of antennae. Their appearance disgusts many.

Insects are attracted to food and moisture. They enter the room through ventilation, cracks, and plumbing. You can notice their colonies where daylight rarely penetrates:

• bath;
• bathroom;
• bin;
• linoleum;
• skirting boards;
• spaces between tiles if there is damage;
• drain hose from the washing machine;
• thresholds;
• stands for pots with indoor flowers.

The insect can live between the folds of wet rags that have been left unattended for a long time.

Crustaceans feed on wet paper, skin particles, garbage, dust, lichen, and mold. White woodlice in the bathroom often live on damp towels.

Who are woodlice and how do they get into the house?

Woodlouse.

Despite popular belief, woodlice are not insects, but crustaceans. Their small oblong body is covered with a dense chitinous shell, which is most often colored white, brown or gray.

Woodlice usually make their way into human homes through ventilation shafts and sewers. Also, these unwanted guests can be brought in with soil for indoor plants.

Chemicals

The surest way to combat woodlice in the bathroom and toilet is with chemicals. You can buy them at a hardware store. The following will help you get rid of insects in your bathroom and apartment:

1. "Tetrix". An expensive but effective remedy that will destroy them in 2-3 days.
2. "Varan" is an aerosol. The woodlice repellent in the bathroom acts almost instantly upon direct contact. The remaining insects die within 1-2 days.
3. "Gett." After treatment, the small woodlice in the apartment die within a couple of days. Very toxic and dangerous for fish. Therefore, before processing it is necessary to isolate access to aquariums.

To get rid of insects, you can call a special service that will carry out complete disinfection.

A method suitable for a basement, cellar or garage

In the garden, individuals quickly eat vegetable crops, but in the basement they can spoil the harvest stored there.
The reason for the appearance of woodlice is high humidity. Therefore, people often find insects in the basement, cellar or garage, or other non-residential premises.

In the garden, individuals quickly eat vegetable crops, but in the basement they can spoil the harvest stored there.

A good solution to the problem is to use quicklime (calcium oxide). The composition is used only in non-residential premises.

When small particles of lime enter the air, they cause irritation of the mucous membranes, sneezing and coughing, therefore special attention is paid to safety precautions when working with calcium oxide:

1. Use a respirator, a tight bandage, and special glasses.
2. Protect the skin of your hands with rubber gloves.
3. Provide natural ventilation.

Prevention

To avoid the question of where the small crustaceans came from and how to get rid of them, it is important to carry out prevention. The following recommendations will help significantly reduce the risk of their occurrence:

1. Maintain normal humidity levels. The room must be ventilated regularly. After taking a shower, open the window. Open the door at night to allow excess moisture to escape.
2. After washing dishes, wipe the sink dry.
3. Perform general cleaning weekly. Throughout the apartment and bathroom, wipe the floors with bleach.
4. In the kitchen, remove crumbs and do not leave cans of cereals open.
5. Pour a small amount of boric acid mixed with chalk 1:4 under the furniture. This will repel pests. You can use aromatic plants - wormwood, lavender, rosemary.
6. Carry out cosmetic repairs to the premises. Seal all the cracks where insects come from, repair the taps, eliminate leaks.

When carrying out regular cleaning, use products that will not harm humans, but will help repel insects. Wipe floors and surfaces with soap and soda solution or use chlorine products.

What if they reappeared due to dampness?

If woodlice reappears in your home, you need to check whether all preventive measures have been followed. If all the measures have been followed, then you should contact professional exterminators; they will definitely destroy the wood lice forever. If not all measures were followed, then it is necessary to eliminate the cause that provoked the reappearance of woodlice and destroy them by any effective method.

If you carefully monitor the cleanliness of the bathroom and toilet, and do not allow the humidity level to increase, then woodlice will definitely not settle in your home.

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What's the harm?

Woodlice in the bathroom and kitchen is an unpleasant fact. They are not dangerous for humans. The pest does not bite or sting. They scare away only by their appearance and their ability to gather in colonies. When the light turns on, they begin to scatter, which affects the nervous system.

They do not affect food or household utensils, but only plants. Crustaceans' favorite delicacy is live, rotten plants. The question of whether they are capable of carrying various infections and why they are dangerous to humans remains unexplored. There is no evidence that the pest carries the infection.

Crustaceans pose a danger to indoor plants. They eat fresh leaves, damage roots, and compact the soil. The flower quickly dies.

There are a lot of ways to get woodlice out of the bathroom. To get the best results, it is recommended to use several methods at once, especially when there are large numbers of pests.

Appearance and description

Despite the fact that almost all people call woodlice insects, they are not. Woodlice belong to arthropods and are included in the class of higher crayfish, for which they can safely be called crustaceans.

Woodlice are characterized by a rather specific appearance: they have an oval body shape, the upper part of which is slightly convex. There are two pairs of whiskers, the first pair is not fully developed, as a result of which the antennae are very small, the second pair is well developed. The eyes of woodlice are located on the left and right of the head. Also presented crustaceans are characterized by the presence of 6 pairs of abdominal legs.

Types of woodlice

In general, there are several thousand species of woodlice (3500-5000 according to various sources).

Typically found in a home:

• Common woodlouse-armadillo (Armadillidium vulgare). It is easily recognized by its high, dark-colored shell. Crustaceans prefer damp cellars and basements, so they are not very often found in houses and apartments, but anything can happen. If there is a possible threat, the creature instantly curls up into a ball.
• Woodlouse (Porsellio scaber). This is a fairly famous “traveler” of apartments. Characteristic features of representatives of this species:

1. The shell has a reddish tint.
2. 7 pairs of legs allow tiny creatures to move very quickly.
3. They don't know how to roll up into a ball.

Woodlice should not be confused with silverfish (a silver-gray insect with a flat body that tapers towards the tail) and with flycatchers (they have a huge number of legs). Woodlice have a larger body (up to 20 mm), thick, oval, consisting of segments

It’s interesting that crustaceans get into the apartment:

• Together with soil collected from the park for replanting indoor flora.
• With soil-contaminated root vegetables purchased at the market.
• From attics or basements.
• From sewer pipes.
• Along the ventilation ducts.
• From neighbors who are so comfortable that small pests have multiplied in huge numbers and decided to develop new territories.

Woodlice are not picky eaters. They will happily eat rotten vegetables, leaves of indoor plants, can get to the roots, and will not disdain leftover food sent to the trash can, crumbs, leftovers on plates in the sink, animal food, etc. If food is really tight, crustaceans will be happy about mold spores that appeared in the bathroom due to high humidity

General recommendations

You can prevent insects from entering your home using preventive measures.

For example:

1. Timely cleaning - it is not necessary to clean every tile in the bathroom until it shines to avoid problems. It is enough to wipe the walls and floor after a shower so that moisture does not accumulate on them.
2. Timely repairs - you need to whitewash the premises once a year, this will help preserve not only the appearance of the home, but also eliminate problems with insects and their nests.
3. Look after the plants in the house. When buying flowers or pots from grandmothers on the street, you should definitely check them for pests.

Compliance with these rules does not require financial investments, only care and labor. However, they are ready to guarantee not only the cleanliness of the space, but also the absence of unwanted guests in the form of insects and fungus.

Meeting with the terrible

A year ago I moved to my apartment in an old building. It was an ordinary one-room Khrushchev house, but I was quite happy with the space, because I was going to live alone, and I, a young girl, didn’t need much. Most of all, I was fascinated by the thought of the upcoming renovation: finally, the interior design would be the way I wanted.

The renovation took a little over two months. With a good person who is well versed in all sorts of construction and improvement subtleties, we put the apartment in order every day.

So, the wallpaper is pasted, the linoleum is laid. Ahead is the purchase of furniture. I come home one gloomy August day, go into a more or less furnished kitchen, turn on the light and see some unknown creeping creature with a grayish back, a bunch of legs and long antennae moving across the floor. I thought that the insect wandered in by chance from the street, because it’s summer - there are a lot of them there. Having mercilessly crushed the creature, I walked around the apartment, figured out what would stand where, and went to spend the night with my mother.

A few days later I came home again. Exactly the same insect was crawling across the room in the direction from the front door to the window. "Ugh!" - I thought and crushed it again.

Then I furnished the apartment: I bought a slide, a large wardrobe, a sofa and moved. On the first day there was a lot to do, I had to wipe off dust here and there, so I went to bed late. Before going to bed, I went to the bathroom, and then a real nightmare happened: a multi-legged gray creature was sitting right on the snow-white bathtub. I washed it off with a shower, changed my mind about washing and turned to Google. My request was: “Insects that live in the apartment.”

Editorial opinion Elena Kalita Magazine editor

When woodlice appear in an apartment, the sanitary condition of the room suffers, so you shouldn’t even try to coexist with them. You should get rid of them as quickly and decisively as possible after they are discovered.

I missed the part of the article about cockroaches, lice and bedbugs and saw a familiar “face”. It turned out that woodlice lived in my apartment. What did I manage to find out about the “neighbors” that night?

1. Firstly, these are not insects, but small crustaceans.
2. Secondly, they are often confused with silverfish - even more vile creatures with long mustaches both in front and behind.
3. Thirdly, they love humidity. The places where they accumulate are secluded corners in the bathroom or under the kitchen sink.

Internet resources said that they do not disappear on their own and need to be removed. Without thinking twice, I bought a can of repellent for crawling insects from a nearby store, sprayed it under the bathroom and calmed down a little.

In the morning I found a couple of corpses on the tiles in the bathroom, disgustedly threw them into the toilet and thought that everything was behind me. But it was not there!

What to do if you get re-infected?

In the case where woodlice live in the bathroom and do not respond to all your attempts, it’s time to call disinfectants. These could be employees of the city sanitary and epidemiological station, or employees of a private organization. Usually, it is in the hands of the latter that all the most relevant, effective and most harmless drugs and devices for humans end up.

You know what woodlice eat in the bathroom, and now you have to find out that they can do this at the same time in yours and in your neighbor’s bathroom. This means that you will have to work together to fight against the pest: check hoods and meshes, chimneys and other communications. It is better to contact disinfectants with the whole house, because individually you will have to fight pests forever.

To prevent a re-infestation, eliminate everything that insects love in the bath: from dampness to darkness and dirt. Remember that pests will be with you until the bathroom is perfectly hygienic, dry, light and warm. Keep your home clean, ventilate it often, let sunlight in, and don't skimp on artificial lighting. Thanks to all this, you will be able to protect your home from the invasion of disgusting creatures, prevent the creation of an unfavorable epidemiological situation, and simply enjoy daily water procedures.

How to remove wood lice from the bathroom

In general, this is a harmless insect that does not pose a serious threat in an isolated case. If there are a lot of woodlice and they are already forming colonies, then the consequences can be different - from the formation of fungal diseases to lichen in household members.

Therefore, it is not worth starting a problem with insects. Here are a large number of life hacks that will help you get rid of unwanted neighbors.

Preventive measures

Timely cleaning is the norm for any housewife. But a few simple tips will help you restore order and cleanliness in your apartment so that wood lice will avoid it as much as possible.

Moreover, in reality everything is not as complicated as it seems, all you need is:

• Ventilate the room regularly.
• Make sure there is good air ventilation in the rooms. For this you can use a fan or install an air conditioner.
• It is better to dry things on the balcony.
• Do not leave floor cloths wet, make sure they dry completely.
• Monitor the shelf life of fruits and vegetables and prevent them from rotting.
• Do not leave dirty dishes with food leftovers in the sink.
• Take out the trash promptly and keep the trash can clean.
• Periodically treat indoor plants for prevention.
• Carry out a preventive inspection of plumbing and fix problems immediately, without putting it off “for later.”
• Spend sufficient time checking hoods and ventilation.
• Eliminate cracks in the floor and walls.

Options for the best wood lice repellents

We suggest exploring several options for drugs that will help you cope with beetles or eliminate their food source without much effort. This is especially true for mold. Reviews will help you navigate when completing the task, which drug is best to choose.

Ordinary quicklime

1. Produced by Russia.
2. Form – in the form of powder or lumps.
3. You should not buy construction lime; it is best to purchase rubble lime or for cultivating your garden.
4. 4. Lime is used as a means to remove wood lice; it also disinfects the space in the room, preventing fungi and mold from forming.
5. Prices vary, depending on the weight of the packages - on average from 23 rubles. for 1 kg, up to 150 or more rubles. for a more voluminous blend.

Review:

Svetlana, St. Petersburg. I don’t know how woodlice appear in the bathroom, but I used lime to get rid of the ones that got into my apartment. I left the bucket overnight. But then I decided to hold it for another day or two. It turned out that all the woodlice ran away somewhere on their own, apparently, and those who didn’t make it in time died themselves. I swept out the dead with a broom. It's simple, like any brilliant solution.

Dichlorvos ECO

1. Manufactured in Russia.
2. Form: insecticidal liquid in a pressurized can.
3. Volume – 190 ml.
4. Toxicity is average.
5. Spray the affected areas and leave for 30 minutes, then wash and clean everything.
6. Average price – 56-75 rubles.

Review of "Dichlorvos ECO":

Sasha, Minsk. I didn’t even expect that dichlorvos could also kill creepers such as woodlice. It turns out that this substance is not only against flying or bloodthirsty jumping insects, but also against crawling ones - woodlice. I poisoned them with them in my shared bathroom. They huddled behind the toilet between the pipes. Everyone is dead!

Antifungal agent "Abedis 06"

1. Produced by Russia and CIS countries.
2. Product form – concentrate.
3. Toxicity – moderate, dangerous for children and animals.
4. It should be used diluted according to the instructions.
5. Approximate price – 750 rubles.

Review of "Abedis 06":

Natalya Ivanovna, Moscow. I used this in the bathroom. Abedis removed the mold in one go; I didn’t even think that I would do everything so quickly. That’s why I poisoned the insects with a mixture of tobacco and salt. Because they sometimes ran indoors. Now about 6-7 months have passed and I don’t detect any mold or bugs. Good product, I recommend it!

What are the reasons if these insects are infested in the bathroom and home toilet?

In human habitats, woodlice comes to damp and dark rooms. This is why it appears:

• pipes or faucet are leaking;
• after swimming there are puddles on the floor;
• while taking a shower, water flows into the joint between the bathtub and the wall;
• constant dampness in the room due to the fact that the neighbors above are flooded or the roof is leaking;
• a pipe under the house burst;
• the room is poorly heated or the ventilation system does not work.

Special baits

The duration of action of some drugs is several hours, if the dose and concentration are observed.

Tarax

A universal substance against ants, bedbugs, cockroaches and woodlice – Tetrix insecticide.

Bought for 80 rubles. 1 g of the drug, diluted in a glass of water (200 ml), can destroy all insects and crustaceans on the area treated with a spray.

You can use the bait regularly, as it is not addictive.

Tetrix

Woodlice, fleas, ticks and bedbugs disappear completely after 2 days when using the new Tetrix product. Its constituent cypermethrin is a pesticide that is often found in home gardens and agriculture.

250 ml of the drug is relatively expensive - about 2000 rubles. Using the product for a small house or apartment is expensive. But when there is an invasion of woodlice in multi-storey buildings, it is still cheaper than calling special services.

No. 26. Help from professionals

When all means have been tried, but there is no desired result, there is always a backup option - the help of specialized specialists. Today, many companies and SES provide services for the destruction of indoor pests. What are the advantages of such cooperation?

• The correct medications will be selected (effective against wood lice and safe for people).
• The professionals will accurately calculate the required amount and concentration of funds.
• When working, special equipment is used that allows you to process the most inaccessible places.
• A guarantee is provided against the return of arthropods within a certain period of time.

No. 17. Heat treatment

This method is often used when colonies of woodlice are clearly visible visually and are at an accessible distance. The fact is that crustaceans die at temperatures above 70°C or when exposed to steam. Therefore, if possible, a steam cleaner or hair dryer is quite suitable.

As for indoor plants, very often the only way to save them is replanting. Before transplanting the flower into another pot, you need to rinse its roots well. If everything is very sad, you should lower the plant for 15 minutes in a container with warm water. Destroy any woodlice that float to the surface

Ways to combat woodlice

When choosing the most optimal method for expelling and destroying woodlice, each housewife takes into account a number of points: the size of a particular apartment, the number of woodlice and the reasons for their appearance, habitat, etc. Also, each of them understands that it is unlikely that it will be possible to get rid of woodlice easily and quickly. Here you need to be patient and act comprehensively , gradually moving towards the complete extermination of pests:

• Create conditions that are completely unsuitable for the existence of crustaceans.
• Block all possible paths and loopholes that could lead woodlice into the house.
• Get rid of all the creatures that have occupied the apartment in the most effective ways (you can use several - active and preventive or enhancing, as well as prolonging the effect of the first).
• Be sure to try to destroy pests in the very heart of their colony, their breeding places (usually in the basement or attic).

How to get rid of it using folk remedies?

1. Table salt should be poured into the dark, damp corners of the bathroom, behind the pipes, under the bathtub. The second option: make a strong water-salt solution and spray it in the desired areas.
2. Throw 3 grams of soda, red pepper and tobacco into 1 liter of water, stir and spray.
3. Dissolve 100 g of dry bread kvass in 0.5 liters of boiling water. Apply in the same way as previous solutions.
4. Dilute 10 g of dry boric acid in a small amount of water, for example, 120 ml, sprinkle.
5. At night, place birch brooms or damp rags in damp corners. In the morning there will be a lot of woodlice in such a simple trap. They need to be shaken out into a bucket or basin and poured boiling water over them to kill them.

We invite you to watch a video on how to get rid of woodlice using folk remedies:

We invite you to familiarize yourself with the description and classification of woodlice, as well as harm and types.

Causes and consequences

If we leave aside the fantastic idea of ​​space expansion, we can identify the following main prerequisites for the appearance of the “monsters” in question in the toilet and bathroom:

Ventilation Intrusion

And again, if we forget for a moment about the woodlice’s dreams of conquering the world, what harm can they really do? Like this:

This is clearly not something you want to contemplate in the toilet

As you can see, the cost of ignoring such a “little thing” as wood lice can end up being quite significant, so it’s better to fight back as soon as possible after they are discovered in your own bathroom.

Rising damp

Rising damp is usually a problem in older homes located in areas of high ground dampness. In this case, the walls of the house act like a wick, allowing groundwater to rise up through them through a process called capillary flow.

A common sign of this problem is characteristic fluffy, white salt formations on the surface of the wall, usually within an obvious damp area, with signs of mold or rot, which also often transfers into nearby floor joists and woodwork.

Residents of old apartment buildings are, as always, unlucky, but the easiest way to protect the walls of your house is by digging up the foundation and pouring fresh concrete on it, preferably with a couple of layers of waterproof materials.

What they look like and what they eat

Woodlice have an elongated, scaly body. The color is brown or gray, although individuals are also white. Some have patterns on their backs that resemble hieroglyphs.

One of the most common insects found in the bathroom

Woodlice feed on small pieces of paper, lumps of dirt, microscopic fungi, etc., so their appearance is unlikely to make anyone happy. They are usually nocturnal and difficult to see in the bathroom during the day. When danger arises, they curl up into a ball and pretend to be dead.

The average lifespan of an individual is about a year.

What is the best way to fight it – with the help of professional pest control or on your own?

Disinsection is the destruction of insects. Although wood lice are crustaceans, pest control agents destroy them too. In most cases, you can cope on your own, especially if there are not very many animals.

There are two types of self-disinfestation: folk remedies and chemical ones. The first option involves preparing a solution or mixture at home. Chemicals for treating premises are sold in stores.

The advantage of self-disinfestation is its low cost, especially if you use folk remedies. The disadvantage is the lack of a guaranteed result. True, the effectiveness of disinfestation with chemicals is higher than the destruction of wood lice using traditional methods.

The advantage of professional pest control is guaranteed efficiency. The disadvantage is the high cost of processing the premises.

Where do they come from and what do they eat?

In total, the world has about 3,500 species of these creatures. However, not all of them are able to exist in apartment conditions. Only two species can live among people, in apartments or houses: the armadillo woodlouse and the rough woodlouse. In many ways they are similar to each other. They differ only in that the first one curls up into a ball when danger approaches, and the second one simply wriggles its body. The first is black, and the second can have shades from yellow, red, to the dark brown tone of the chitinous layer.

How to get into the apartment

• bathrooms;
• water supply or sewer pipes;
• passages of ventilation hatches;
• from neighbors through windows or doors;
• from the corridor where the contaminated garbage chute is;
• from the damp basement of the house, cellar, carriage crate, storerooms and other bins;
• from garages, balconies, loggias, including those attached to an apartment load-bearing wall without permission (in violation of the construction requirements of SNIPs);
• from damp attics where the roof periodically leaks;
• brought home with rotten fruits, vegetables, berries or herbs;
• brought home with bags, clothes, shoes and other accessories on the person;
• are brought home on the fur of pets (very rarely, but it does happen).

Woodlice feeding

In the apartments they eat the following:

• food residues and food products with signs of decomposition;
• spoiled vegetables and fruits;
• dirty dishes;
• contents of the trash can;
• dust on the walls;
• mucus on the floor, walls, ceiling - for example, if you cleaned fish (for example, carp), there are remains of a mucous sticky substance on its scales;
• stagnant water;
• mold, mildew in the bathroom;
• any other small microflora.

Woodlice can live in the house, bathroom, and toilet in the following places and secluded corners:

• constantly damp soil in flower pots;
• places where condensation often accumulates in the bathroom;
• in corners in dark places and crevices;
• under the bathroom, where dampness is often found;
• under the sink, if there is a cabinet underneath it that is tightly closed and poorly ventilated;
• behind the toilet between the pipes;
• behind the washing machine;
• in the ventilation shaft.

Features of woodlice

The nimble little woodlice are sometimes called miniature brontosaurs and compared to tiny armadillos. The crustaceans have a 7-plate chitinous shell, they have 2 pairs of whiskers and 7 pairs of limbs, and also:

• These are the only representatives of crustaceans that did not completely abandon the water element, but chose a land existence.
• When living conditions worsen, they can hibernate, and the duration of such suspended animation is up to 9 months.
• Reproduction occurs not only through fertilization, but also “without a dad” - parthenogenetically.
• Land crustaceans have breathing sacs and so-called land gills. Arthropods absorb oxygen from the thin film of moisture that wets these gills.
• Since they are not insects, the use of insecticides is not always advisable , because the effect of the active substance is very limited. Therefore, it is necessary to use either very strong drugs, or supplement them with other agents, or carry out the treatment several times.

If at least one woodlice appears in the apartment, you must immediately begin to act:

• Make sure there are no leaks in the water supply and sewerage systems.
• Try to reduce high humidity to a minimum by all possible means.
• Promptly seal existing gaps and cracks in the walls and ceiling, remove gaps around the risers of communication pipes (spray foam can help).