I hate centipedes! Those creepy, biting pests drive me nuts! I know they feast on other bugs, so I kill anything I see. I know they need moisture to survive, so I try to keep things kind of dry in my house. Does anyone know any other tactics for ridding the world (or my corner of it) of this scourge?
It may be more expensive in your area than it is around here, but call an exterminator. Or there could be some commercial spray that would work on them.
I’ve got an exterminator that comes once a month. Now the only centipedes I see are dead ones–which, I admit, are only marginally better than the live ones. They vacuum up easily though.
I never knew that centipedes bite.
Maybe the UK ones are too small.
How big do these things get ?
Centipedes, like a lot of other insects, like dark, moist places. Controlling this aspect of your environment is a good way to make it less appealing for them.
This is true outside as well as inside. Is there a lot of mulch or poor drainage outside the room where you’re seeing them? This should be addressed somehow.
I would recommend a microencapsulated formula. These usually come with a little hose and a spray handle on them, and are only to be used outdoors. Shake well and spray against the foundation wall and the ground adjacent, about two feet or so up the wall and out on the ground. This will create a chemical barrier that will pretty much kill them before they get in.
Do you have shrubs that are very thick and close to the house? They contribute to moisture, as they not only prevent the area beneath them from drying out quickly, but they also drop moisture of their own after a rain, so that area (usually right against the foundation) gets double the moisture than, say the middle of the front lawn. Not a bad idea to trim back the shrubs.
Some tropical variants in the jungles of Southeast Asia get up to a foot long and as big around as a man’s thumb. Their feet are poisonous. One time one crawled into a guy’s shirt collar and across his back…ugh.
Secondhand info, BTW–my dad was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and saw the above…and rats the size of dachshunds, but that’s another story…:eek:
And if I were you, I’d sleep with my mouth shut.
One aerosol can of Lysol spray, original formula
One Bic aim n flame
ignite flame wand, aim lysol, fire away
You get pretend you’re Lt Ripley in Aliens. “Get out of my house you bitch!”
We had them in the basement when I was a teen. If you left any laundry on the basement floor, the next morning - centipede!!
Well, I fixed that! I took a box of table salt, and poured it around the perimiter of the basement - never saw another centipede again.
(I have NO idea what salt does to concrete foundations, but it wont kill your pets, your kids, or poison the watertable.)
Arrrghgh… the ultimate ick creature, the only one that really creeps me out. Severely. Other folks (like the football players in the film The Replacements) are scared of spiders. Not me. I think spiders are fascinating and I could watch them for hours. My wife freaks out over snakes. I have no problem with snakes. They are ancient symbols of esoteric wisdom.
But Centipedes–ugh, ick, I shudder at the mention of them. Knowing they have poisonous bites does not help. How I wish they didn’t exist! Once in the mid-1980s I was watching music videos on Black Entertainment Television. Some female singer came on with a “Centipede” song, and the video had actual footage of hugely magnified ones slithering across the screen. Gee, thanks a lot, BET. I tuned out permanently!
“Centipedes, like a lot of other insects, like dark, moist places.”
centipedes are not insects. they are nematodes (i think)
Actually, the horrible, revolting things are arthropods like insects, but are chilopods. Nematodes are non-segmented worms, another phyla entirely.
I know all this because I too have a centipede problem. How do I stop them from crawling out of the drain in my kitchen sink? Where do they come from?
Wow, and I thought I was the only one with this particular hangup. Snakes are cool. I love snakes. I have no problem with spiders, insects, slugs, worms, what-have-you. But anything with more than 10 legs … yeeeesh. Luckily I have never found one in my apartment; if they started crawling out of the drain in the kitchen sink, you’d probably have to take me away in a straitjacket. Shudder…