Sowbugs

Factual Questions
1

My house is 70 years old. I have no idea how old the shed is out back, but it’s younger than the house. The shed is about eight feet square. It has a wooden (two-by-four) frame, and is covered with ½" planks. The floor is plywood; as is the roof, which is covered with asphalt shingles. With a little fixing, it would actually make a decent little “guest room”.

Now, the planks are old and grey. I decided the shed needed a coat of paint. I started painting under the eaves, and “sowbugs” started crawling out of the cracks. Lots of them. I guess they didn’t like the odour of the paint. I didn’t see any sowbugs coming out of the planks when I was painting them. (Not finished painting, BTW. Just did the front so far.)

There’s an old cedar stump in the front yard that I hack at with a pick-axe whenever I think of it. Inside the rotten parts are sowbugs.

First: Are these really sowbugs? I’ve never seen one roll up into a sphere, as I did when I was a kid in San Diego. These guys up here in the PNW are similar, but more flattened.

Second: As a child, I only saw “pillbugs” in the lawn. Why do I find these little crustaceans in wood? Do they eat wood? Are they doing any harm to the shed?

2

Its probably a woodlouse (scroll about halfway down)

3

Thanks, drachillix! These are overall light grey, BTW.

I see that they feed on decaying organic matter. No doubt there’s rot at the edges of the shed’s roof. Strangely, the inside of the shed stays nice and dry; even though the window (in back) is not glassed. (And by “dry”, I mean “no standing water or water stains”. Obviously, there is dampness; though no mold or mildew. In any case the lawnmowers don’t seem to mind.)