Woodlice are not good lice inside the house

I’VE begun to wonder if my boyfriend’s flat might actually be the Hellmouth. After being beset by a moth infestation, there is now a fresh plague: woodlice. A scene last night — in which I uncovered scores of them under a curtain — was straight out of The Reaping.

We should perhaps have foreseen the apocalypse. Over the past few weeks, after building works, we spotted a few scuttling along the carpet, clearly scouts on a recce mission. Deeming this a safe space for their species, they’ve then encouraged the army to invade.

My mother taught me that woodlice are the goodies of the garden: they eat decaying leaves and rotting wood, like nature’s Hoovers. Thus my strategy against them so far has been a mere enforced migration to the nearby green. But I’m wondering if they’re really a harbinger, a warning to safeguard all the first-born of Shepherd’s Bush...