Infestation in new house

[SunnySideDeepDown]

Please do let me know if there’s a better place to post this!

We moved into our new house 4 weeks ago. For context, it’s a 4 bed large detached house. LOTS of wood everywhere including doors, window frames (some are rotting but most in ok condition), cork layer under carpet downstairs and . It’s a mid century house so we were hoping to keep and restore lots of the wood as we love it.

The house was empty for years as it went through probate and the sale took forever. So I’m sure this didn’t help and may have originally caused it.

Anyway, as soon as we moved in it became apparent there was a woodlouse infestation. Dead ones scaled the perimeter of carpeted rooms everywhere except for one bedroom and its en-suite.

No apparent damp as our humidifier indicates it’s actually quite dry and no other visual signs of damp.

We had one week where, strangely, they seemed to disappear overnight. It coincided with the warmer whether a few weekends ago but they’ve since returned. We see approximately 20-30 a day and hoover them up. It’s a constant struggle and it’s really getting me down.

Its a large house and could be coming in from anywhere although I suspect they may be breeding under the carpet, just because of how frequently they’re appearing (sometimes see one 10 mins after I’ve just hoovered there) - although we’ve also seen them in rooms that aren’t carpeted so who knows.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Im waiting for pest control, and luckily we planned to replace all carpets and decor throughout so not too worried about that - but I’m worried about how deep of a problem we have and if we’ll ever get rid of them.

We have young kids and whilst I’m thankful it’s woodlouse and not rats or other harmful creatures, it’s not nice finding them everywhere and all of us are fed up of them.

Would really appreciate some insight or experience from people in the know.

Hi, I work for a national heritage org and we sometimes end up with this issue in our properties and while we have to be quite delicate in historic areas often if the problem is as big as you're describing we have been known to take up (90's and later) carpeting in staff and storage areas. I'd honestly recommend scrapping the carpets asap and having just boards for a few weeks or laying some cheap lino offcuts anywhere you need to cover for the kids just to get a handle on the issue. and you want to get as much as possible off the ground that they could get into/hide in as you don't want them to have sheltered somewhere until the great woodlice wars are over then move back into other areas.
Its not so much that they are living in the carpet but their food source is often living under the carpets and underlay (there's a good reason pre-20th century houses had large un-fitted rugs and carpets, they would be rolled and cleaned under every few years to avoid this sort of thing and could be taken out of the room and treated for any pests) and if you have sealed any obvious entry points from the outdoors then they WILL be eating something in the house.
They love to eat rotting wood so I would check for damage to the boards/joists underneath floors if thats where they seem to come and go once you've the carpets up, there may be no moisture/humidity issues currently but be historic damage they're feasting on. They don't tend to bother any solid wood in good nick but anything you're worried about actively rotting (and definitely going to replace) see if you can remove or replace asap, if not feesable financially at the min you can paint over a rotting window frame wood with a thick consistency/few coats of gloss paint, it may not look glamourous but will stop them having direct access to the wood or from being attracted to its smell which will limit their food source too.
With regard any wooden features you're keeping what we would do for the historic rooms would be adding a peppermint or citrus smell which is hated by bugs of all types, we often make our own small batches on any sites there's an issue as the ingredients need to be sensitive/conservation grade but effectively a household version could be some strong peppermint/citrus extract/essence and a little bit of rubbing alcohol(vodka in a pinch), 90%smell to 10%alcohol and spray around/leave in reed diffusers, wipe down surfaces with it especially door frames and pop it liberally in mop water for any hard floors. You can also apply wax to the wood to give it a bit of protection, this is only really needed around the bottom few inches of the wood, any wax will do but we use Harrell's and find the woodlice leave it be.

for a more extreme option you can set little bait traps, shallow containers with equal parts sugar/water/yeast mixed to a paste, the yeast will attract them (especially if you've cut off other food sources) and the mixture will kill a fair few of them off, im sure theres probably a better bait option off the shelf but we are limited to what we can use near historic items, the benefit is also that its child friendly if they get into it where other baits may require much more supervision of your little ones.

The bad news is you'll (hopefully) end up with far more woodlice corpses while they all die off so keeping on top of hoovering them up while this stage occurs in paramount (as tedious and hopeless as it may seem) as otherwise they will eating their rotting friends, once you start seeing more dead than alive you're in the home strait, best of luck :)

Wow cantwaittohaveanap, you're so impressive!

We had precisely this problem when we moved to an early 1970s house. Loads of dead woodlice all along the edges of the carpets particularly under windows. We were told that they come in (somehow) and die because it is too dry inside, and they like damp conditions. We kept hoovering them up and in the end the problem stopped. i think the cause was rotton wood in window frames which we have since replaced. The house had been empty for some months before we moved in. In our case there was absolutely no need to remove carpets as the floors were sound and they were not the source of the problem.

A relative almost bought a really old property that had been vacant for a decade or so as the owner was in a nursing home. On one inspection she noticed creepies and thought there was a bit of a damp smell so called a damp inspection company to check it out before the sale was finalised, the problems were huge and costly (burst pipe under ground floor) so she pulled out. Might be worth getting a damp inspection done as they can tell you if there is anything bigger going on.

Woodlice will only eat decaying wood so I would guess you could maybe have a damp issue although it could just be that because the house has been unheated for a long time, there has been enough damp wood just although condensation to keep them happy.
If you heat the house they should eventually go away or there is a more serious damp issue which needs addressing.