I. General Facts about Centipedes

More than two thousand species of centipede occupy our planet, and most of them live almost entirely alfresco. However, the centipede starring in this article is the house centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata), the only species that can live its entire life inside a building.

The species is probably native to the Mediterranean region, but has made its way around the world thanks to international trade and travel. Centipedes are arthropods like insects, but they aren’t actually insects in the taxonomy sense, since they have more than six legs – the house centipede has an average of 30 when full-grown.

The house centipede, in particular, grows one to two inches long and has an average of 15 pairs of very long, delicate legs and a rigid body, which enables it to run with surprising speed up walls and along ceilings and floors.

These centipedes are found in almost any part of the house; most commonly, they are encountered in basements and bathrooms, where there is a lot more water, but they can also be found in dry places like offices, bedrooms and dining rooms. The greatest likelihood of encountering them is in spring, when they come out because the weather gets warmer, and in fall, when the cooling weather forces them to find shelter in human habitats.

House centipedes feed on spiders, bedbugs, termites, cockroaches, silverfish, ants and other household pests. They kill their prey by injecting venom through their fangs. House centipedes lay their eggs in the spring. In a laboratory experiment of 24 house centipedes, an average of 63 and a maximum of 151 eggs were laid.

II. Centipedes as Pests

Centipedes lay eggs – usually between 50 and 100 – in the spring, and can live a relatively long time: 3-7 years. They spend most of the day hiding in dark places, and come out at night to hunt for small prey. Because they have to remain in a damp environment to keep from drying out, they are often found outdoors under rocks, tree bark, and leaves, and indoors in basements and bathrooms.

Centipedes rarely bite people, and sometimes their jaws aren’t even strong enough to pierce human skin in self-defense. If they manage it, a centipede bite will usually resemble a minor bee sting in humans or large mammals like a cat or dog.

The only creatures that need to worry about house centipedes are their fellow pests, since centipedes kill and eat a variety of things you’d probably rather get rid of anyway, like bedbugs, termites, silverfish, spiders and even roaches.

Technically, then, centipedes are very desirable pests to have in your home, but the same could be said about spiders. However, would you want to find either one of these bugs in the shower with you? If you’d rather shower alone, read on.

III. Basic Centipede Control

* Kill centipedes or capture them on sight. Their rigid bodies and freakishly long, numerous legs make them very fast. But centipedes don’t usually invade homes in enormous numbers, so if you don’t see them often and you eliminate the one you’re looking at, you may have just taken care of your centipede problem.

If you don’t want to kill the centipede, but you want it out of your space, you can capture it in a jar and take it outside. Otherwise, spraying it with an aerosol insecticide – or simply squishing it – will do the trick.

* Get rid of their food. This will make centipedes move to someone else’s house, where there’s more to eat. Centipedes eat mold and live in damp dark places. Removing their "habitat" is the first step towards eliminating them. Get a dehumidifier and use bleach to kill the mold and mildew that centipedes love so much.

* Keep your house dry. Centipedes love moisture. They can be a problem in your basement as well, if you have leaky pipes or something. The addition of a dehumidifier (and fixing your water pipes) should eliminate the problem. Centipedes dry out and die if they don’t stay in a moist environment, so if you clean up damp closets and basements, and use dehumidifiers, centipedes will go and find more hospitable places to live.

* Use sticky traps. Put them in corners along the floorboards, where centipedes often hunt, and the traps will capture not only centipedes, but other house insects as well. This will help you determine which other pests you need to eliminate to deprive the centipedes of prey.

* Close off entrance points. Keep centipedes from entering your house in the first place by sealing cracks in the foundation and concrete walls, eliminating spaces around doors and windows, and covering basement floor drains with window screens.

IV. Natural and Organic Centipede Control

Actually, most methods of getting rid of centipedes are natural ones. This article will provide you with a couple of additional suggestions, but some natural solutions, like keeping your house dry and sealing potential points of entry, have already been detailed above.

* Reduce clutter inside and outside your house. If your laundry isn’t on the floor, centipedes will be forced to find another hiding place. Outside, keep leaf litter, grass clippings, firewood, compost, and building materials cleaned up or away from the perimeter of the house.

If you really hate centipedes (and you aren’t renting), you may even go so far as to tear down any ivy growing up the side of your house. Centipedes love to hide in it.

* If you want to poison the centipedes (but you don’t want to poison the earth, yourself or your pets), you can use natural pesticides like diatomaceous earth for continual centipede control. Products containing plant-derived pyrethrin will exterminate centipedes on contact, and can be used as a fog or spray.

* Try sprinkling powered borax around the perimeter of the basement floorboards. Borax works well at eliminating centipedes, roaches and fleas, as well as most other bugs.

Just sprinkle the borax along the wall baseboards, in cupboards, or wherever centipedes are a problem. You can find powdered borax in the laundry detergent area of most stores.

V. Killing Centipedes

If you aren’t satisfied with just keeping these creepy-crawlies out of your space, and you want to know how to kill centipedes, try these tips.

If your only problem is with centipedes inside your house, you can put a powdered residual insecticide such as Drione in the places where centipedes usually hide, like in wall cracks, dark corners of the basement, crawl spaces and under furniture.

Keep in mind that centipedes will have to walk across an insecticide accidentally; because they usually go after moving prey, they aren’t susceptible to bait. You can discourage centipedes from even going near your home by coating the bottom few feet of the side of your house, and soaking at least a five-foot band of soil around the house with an outdoor residual spray insecticide such as Talstar or Demon WP.

If you don’t even want to encounter centipedes in your yard, be sure to spray the whole lawn and any mulch you use for gardening or landscaping. Remember, though, that insecticides alone will only work temporarily. If your yard and house are still cluttered, damp, and full of tasty bugs, the centipedes will find you again.