How to Get Rid of House Centipedes

I don't need any roommates at this point in my life. I'm evicting these little aliens. The good news here is centipedes don’t typically attack your homes in swarms, like termites or cockroaches. Sure they're ugly, but they're not really dangerous. (They have been known to bite though.) So, odds are I was probably just dealing with that one -- maybe he had a buddy lurking in the shadows. I could've just squashed him, and been done with it. 


Or... I could've put the monster in a jar and taken him to the garden. If I only had a garden...and a jar. I guess what I was more concerned about was keeping them  out of my house for good. Sure, they eat bedbugs, termites and roaches. But who wants to make that trade? I'd rather just have no bugs and leave it at that. And therein lies the paradox.


You have to get rid of their food source to get rid of them. And what is their food source? Why other bugs of course. When there are no bugs to eat, the centipedes are forced to flee your home to find eats. Some other things that don't involve pest control per se that I'm probably going to have to do to ensure these things stay outside where they belong are as follows:

• Screens in the basement drain windows 
• Filling cement cracks.
• Cutting back the overgrown foliage around the house
• Put our a little boric acid around the perimeter

These steps could also help with some of the other bugs now residing in my beautiful dump. I don't know *exasperated exhalation* we'll see. 

More House Centipedes

I wasn't fast enough with the my phone camera (and I was cowering in the corner like the maid in a Tom & Jerry cartoon) to catch the centipede on video, but I did manage to find some video of one. You'll see why I was taken aback.

Enter the House Centipede

I  thought I'd regrouped. I felt certain I could tackle this thing head on. I offered up a little post about door-to-door scammers to distance myself from the pressure I was feeling about this project -- the bugs in particular. I did a little research on pesticides, and I looked into a few of the less than legal options. I probably won't be purchasing any of those, and I don't recommend that you seek them out either.

 There's a reason why you can't buy them at your local hardware store. Sure they're effective on rats and roaches, but they're also do a pretty good job at harming humans too, so stay I away, I beseech you. I found some stuff that at least made the place acceptable in terms of working environments. It wasn't expensive, either. If it's still working in a month, I may give you the brand name. So the roaches were no longer a problem, ostensibly. I figured I had them under control, and I haven't noticed any other critters in the crannies of this ramshackle domicile.

Then I went down into the basement. Yep, the basement. You're thinking spiders, right? If you are, you're thinking wrong. I lifted the plastic tarp covering the red-clay floor, and there staring back at me was the most frightening insect I'd ever seen. It didn't even appear to be terrestrial -- it's long legs (there must of been three dozen of them) undulated along the burgundy dirt, its snakelike-trunk rolling and pulsating as it closed in on me. Ever seen "Starship Troopers?" Well, that about sums it up. My basement was "an ugly planet; a bug planet." It scampered off eventually, leaving me near tears, cowering behind the hot-water heater (which also needed to be replaced, by the way).

I soon learned what I'd seen was a "house centipede," and that they typically don't bite humans. They kill a lot of other unwanted bugs, too: mosquitoes, roaches, blah blah blah. Don't care. I want them out of here. They are hands down the most frightening bugs I've ever come across. The thought of one cruising over my face in the middle of the gives me the chills. Exterminators some really have any solid approaches to killing these things, as they don't pop up too much. They're elusive and typically stay away from high-traffic areas in the home. Again, this was a pest control job I was going to have to tackle on my own.

Beware of Pest Control Scammers

I tend to have a problem with most door-to-door salespeople. It doesn't matter how precious they are. Honestly, it doesn't even matter how just their cause is. All I know is, someone's ringing my doorbell after I just got my one-year old in bed and asleep. You know, as do they, most people tend to be home and most pliable in terms of their wallets around 8 o'clock; we've finished dinner, maybe had a cocktail and are either doing the dishes or watching TV. Some of these folks are legit. Some aren't. The following story angered me, but came as no real surprise.

Most of the neighborhood-trolling entrepreneurs in Utah are recruited from local schools, including  Brigham Young.  They tend to be eager and excited about the work; and why wouldn't they be? They're often promised six figures for a summer's work. It's not unlike Jihad extremism: Do this unpleasant thing for a while and a world of unearthly delights await you. OK, I've pushed the metaphor a bit again, but you get my drift. students are sometimes promised they will make upwards of $100,000 in a summer. But they need training to land your credit card number, and the people who train them are the sneakiest of sneakies. It's like persuasion 101. They learn to use your emotions against you, and they learn how to easily bypass your rejection. 

One of the latest scams that's found it's way into Utah sub-divisions is involves pest control services. Now, most pest control providers are on the up and up, but that's really the point isn't it. They're actual companies that offer a service and provide said surface upon your request. 

Now  these other guys aren't even really companies; they're fronts at best. At worst, they're guys waiting around the corner in a van.  They hire these junior grifters because of their fresh faces and willingness to work. They tend to be most successful with older people, for whatever reason. I've even had the same scammer come by my home twice in a matter of months. This is after I called him out. He acted concerned about my queries, and told he'd speak with local authorities (who he said he was registered with and the proof was in the laminate around his neck). I told him I'd also be talking with these authorities in a matter of moments, and that I wasn't impressed with his laminate. I know, I'm really cool and tough. He did disappear rather quickly though after our exchange -- in a mysterious navy-blue Nissan Quest. 

Now for the good news, there are a ton of whistle blower sites out there to help you sift through the chaff.   Pest Control Utah Reviews not only reviews legit pest control companies, but offers advice on how to get those pushy salespeople (genuine and fraudulent) off your doorstep.  The most valuable of which and easy to do is simply Googling the company. Pair the name with words such as scam and see what comes up. You can even tell the salesperson this policy. If he tries to dissuade you from doing this you're probably dealing with a scam.

But don't trust everything online. You could hit a review page full of glowing recommendations placed there by the scammer himself. ScamInformer and ComplaintsBoard are good sites to check for feedback on a  company. All that being said, the best way to deal with door-to-door salespeople is to look through the peep hole, if the person on your stoop has a clipboard, just don't answer. It's as simple as that. 

Pesticides

So, my first thought was "pesticides." I wanted something  that would kill these bugs fast and wouldn't involve much effort on my part. I cruised the hardware stores -- walking up and down the aisles, carefully considering cost versus efficacy.I hit the internet -- reading forum posts, and whatever message board chatter I could find on the topic. That's really where I got the most info. Let's go wayyyy back. .

According to Ohio State University, Pesticides are typically of chemical or biological origin, and folks use them to improve life as they know it. They're made to control bugs, but not only bugs. They can also be used on bacteria and rodents -- maybe weeds, too.

The word finds its origins in the Latin words pestis, meaning plague, and cidu, meaning to kill.  In essence, it's a  product that purports pest control.  An interesting tidbit: many active ingredients in pesticides are used to destroy human pathogens in medicine form.

The first step is to identify the pest. And I sorta did that. My house had roaches... ostensibly. There could be all kinds of vermin crawling around in the walls that I was unaware of, but my first target was the roaches. I'll tell you what kind of roaches in an upcoming post. I trolled some forums, one of which was Australian, and found more info on what to buy.  Pesticide products tend to be specific in their  spectrum, so you have know what kind of bug you're dealing with. You could also be killing the wrong bugs with your pesticide, who could potentially have been the natural enemies of the ones you wanted dead, ergo aiding the enemy.

After you ID the pest, you have to do a little preemptive P&L. Is buying all of this stuff cost effective. Will the money I put down for a dozen cans of whatever have the value I intend them to? Some people call this economic threshold, but we're not aiming for an MBA here. Lots of initial-isms in that paragraph, huh?

I'd kind of ruled out the rolled up magazine at this point and decided on one particular product. In all honesty, the ones that looked to be the most effective had been recalled because they either violated some environmental ordinance or were unsafe to kids or pets. Well. at the time I had neither, so I set my sights on some black market action.

Pest control can be fun

I know what you're thinking: Pest control is work. Pest control is a chore. Pest control sucks. Well I'm here to change your mind. I'm the guy  who's gonna make this fun. When you're done reading my posts, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you may do a cartwheel or something. Remember, you own you're reaction. You're allowed to express you're jubilation in whatever manner you see fit. As long as it isn't yawning indifference. I've long been a fan of the What's that Bug Blog. Let's say it's inspired me to entertain you with my own quips and quandaries on the subject. Are you ready? Let's get into this.

A little bit about my history with pest control: I moved into a new home in what I would call a neighborhood with potential. You know the deal; the gutters were askew, the yard was more dirt than grass, and the water was a little brown. But I was dead set on not only making this place livable; I was going to make it nice.

Now, I've always had a fear of bugs. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing pathological. I just didn't and don't think our species should observe cohabitation. Suffice it to say, I have no problem stomping the life out of one. I'll occasionally make an exception for a spider -- as they supposedly kill lots of nasty bugs (or so every person that's not afraid of spiders will tell you).

My new home had a serious bug problem. The walls seemed to move with unwanted visitors. There were bugs in attic, bugs in the sink, bugs in the garage, and worst of all; there were bugs in the kitchen. There was a roach so big in my washing machine, I could've saddled the thing and ridden it to work. I didn't have the money to call an exterminator, and I had no experience with pest control on this scale. This was going to take more than a can of Raid or a rolled up copy of People. This was going to take some elbow grease.