Pill Bug Infestation

Pill Bug Infestations

Outdoors, pill bugs do useful work. Along with earthworms, millipedes, snails and many smaller creatures, they break down fallen leaves and other dead plant material. What they leave behind is processed further by fungi and bacteria, and the nutrients end up back in the soil where plants can use them. They are also food for lizards, toads, birds and spiders. They do little harm to healthy plants, so a few in the garden are nothing to worry about. They become a pest when large numbers build up against the house or in a vegetable bed.

Young pill bugs hatch looking like small, pale copies of the adults, with one fewer pair of legs. They grow through a series of molts and keep molting now and then as adults.

What a Pill Bug Problem Looks Like

A pill bug problem is mostly a matter of numbers in the wrong place. Signs to watch for:

• Dead, curled pill bugs collecting along door thresholds, in garage corners and in ground-floor bathrooms and laundry rooms.
• Live ones on walkways and patios at night or early in the morning, especially after rain or irrigation.
• Garden damage such as chewed seedlings, holes in strawberries, and scarring on tomatoes, squash or melons resting on the soil.
• Crowds under objects when you lift a pot, paver, board or bag of potting soil.

Pill bugs breathe through gill-like structures on their underside that must stay moist, which is why they gather wherever the ground stays damp. Homes with heavy mulch beds against the foundation, sprinklers that wet the walls, leaky spigots, poor gutter drainage or slab edges that stay wet tend to see the most. They wander in by accident at night, and very wet or very dry spells can push more of them toward the house.

Females carry their eggs in a fluid-filled pouch on the underside of the body until the young hatch, so a colony next to a constantly damp spot can grow steadily. In Florida, sightings often rise during the rainy season, roughly June through September, and in spring when gardens are planted, but pill bugs can be active in any warm month. Before treating anything, confirm what you’re seeing on our pill bug identification page.