Centipedes
I think they are worse than cockroaches, except that they eat cockroaches…so since there is a fair amount of ‘floor chow’ (hey, I live with a small constantly grazing child and I sure as hell did not ask for carpet) in my house at any given time, I might be grateful that we are hosting about 20 centipedes per one that I see!
About this time last year, my in-laws moved out of their house and off to Virginia Beach…we liked their house as much as (probably better than) our house at the time. We decided to sell our house and move into their house. On the last morning that they were in their house and the day before we started cleaning it out, my mother-in-law called and told me that she had seen some weird spider looking thing crawl through the kitchen window…no big deal I figured…I mean I had just conquered my fear of millipedes at the Carnegie Science Centre — thank you animal ambassador program!
We cleaned the house and moved in…it wasn’t until about two or two and a half months later that we started to see those ‘weird spider looking things’…oh, my! First, I conquer my fear of millipedes (which turn out to be awesome for gardens and no threat at all) and now and I am faced with creepy, sinister looking, fast moving and impossible to see on this god-forsaken carpet that my in-laws HAD to get and are rather attached to (even though they don’t live here)!
Well, Fall turned into Winter and I didn’t see anymore. Spring came around this year and I saw one. By this time, I knew that they were centipedes and I assumed the worse without much research…reminiscent of my fear of millipedes. I have seen 8 and killed 6 of them…Now, I am DREADING Summer. I am dreading the fact that I can NOT rid my home of these scary looking things — there just isn’t a way. Don’t believe exterminators who tell you that they can rid your house…they will only dump tons of scary chemicals on your life and NOT get rid of these critters — at best they’ll seem to retreat for no more than a month at most.
Thankfully my child, cats, food, husband and I are all safe — for the most part. Apparently, usually, centipedes fangs are too small or weak to puncture our skin, but if one does manage to do so, it would be like being stung by a bee. Well, considering that I am allergic to bees and do not know my reaction to centipede venom, I am rather nonplussed by the thought of being bitten. Of course, I have been reassured by many kind folks that I shouldn’t worry about being bitten. HA!
If you’d like to find out more about these ‘fantastic’ critters and all the wonderful things they do for you, while scaring the shit out of most people — when they run across their feet while trying to do laundry in the basement — you can visit these two sites and plenty others out there just by ‘googl-ing’ centipede.
I wonder if we should have stuck with our old house, which I am sure had centipedes, but they weren’t making their presence known.
We’ve got black widows in the garage laundry room. I haven’t killed them because, why, you know? I mean, if I kill one, it means I’ve killed one. It does not mean I’ve killed them all, and it wouldn’t change my behavior in the garage if I killed one (i.e., I’ll still be utterly squicked out and sure that they’re still in there.)
So, yeah, I get you. Good luck! And wtg on the no exterminator. Sean’s answer to everything is to dump poison on it, sigh. I restrain him, but barely.
Comment by feebee — June 1, 2008 @ 12:22 pm
Oooh…spiders! I hate killing them and kind of feel like I am bound for bad luck if I do and after all they DO eat things which are much MORE annoying, like fruit flies, mosquitoes and gnats. I know that I’d leave a black widow alone in the laundry room/basement/garage, but I’d have to either safely relocate it or kill it if it was in my bedroom or Elijah’s bedroom. I realize the chances of us getting bit would be slim, but I mean, it could seriously affect our cats’ or son’s health…
Exterminators scare me more than pests. I think I would resort to it if we were infested with something that was making us ill anyways, but just to dump all that crap into the air, curtains and everything else, because of some ‘creepy-crawlies’, doesn’t sound all that smart.
Apparently glue traps or sticky paper can work for centipedes, but they can still live fruitful lives if they escape with about half of their legs…not to mention that glue traps can catch mice and cause them to die slowly and painfully — we have cats, so not mice, but I’d still be sad if it happened.
Tell Sean that if he wouldn’t drink it without 911 on speed dial, then he really shouldn’t douse the house with it!
Comment by michele james-parham — June 1, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
Cool blog! Yeah, I have them in my house, too. Never had a problem with them, though, “problem” being defined as my needing to do something about them being there.
OK, so they prey on all manner of other critters whose presence I do not care for? And reproduce one at a time, as opposed to thousands? And do not get into my food or unwashed pots? Fine, they can stay.
Meanwhile, I get some amusement and excitement out of trying to chase one down with an empty cup at breakfast. Kind of a natural waker-upper.
Comment by Stu — June 1, 2008 @ 7:11 pm
Stu- yep…they eat all the other things you don’t want in your house and they leave you food and dirty dishes alone!
This has explained why in our house of probably 1500 to 2000 books, we don’t have silverfish…even with many of those books in storage down in the basement!!
Comment by michele james-parham — June 1, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
Hey lady - first, sorry I haven’t been around to comment, my ISP sucks the big one and I hate them.
(I’ll get around to it!)
Second, centipedes *EEEEKKK!* I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!
I have dealt with black widows, brown recluses, SCORPIONS! Flying cockroaches that are as big as your head - but centipedes freak me out to no end. There are simply way to many legs. They are creepy. They move fast.
Simple green, however, kills them dead
And so long as your keep the moisture to a minimum, you should see less of them (you could set a water trap too, to keep them out of your hair - I mean that figuratively, not your real hair. Oh, God, now I’m all itchy and I wanna wash my hair).
Ick *shudder*.
So uh, yeah. Good luck with that. Stay outside, or soemthing
Comment by Anok — June 4, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
Send me some centipedes! I have a disgusting roach infestation that will not be curbed and I feel like I’m living in some kind of slum. *shudder* I’ll pay postage, seriously, scoop some of ‘em into a box. Unless they can eat through a box.
Oh wait, I just clicked on your link and those are HOUSE CENTIPEDES. Nevermind. Those things are the fodder of my nightmares. I was thinking of cute yellow centipedes that you find in the woods…which makes no sense since we are talking about a house here and not the woods. Oh well.
Comment by Jill — June 4, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
Anok- Thanks! I might look into Simple Green or a water trap. It’s really only the finished basement in our house that we seem them the most and we do have a dehumidifier and we are on high ground from the river…but it’s still a basement in Pittsburgh!
Jill- You are welcome to come and *TRY* to scoop up as many as you like! You’d owe me more than postage if you want me to do it! Nightmares…well, I’m actually starting to ‘get use’ to them…not as in ‘hey, we have pets!’ or anything, but they aren’t waiting in my bathtub for me to shower or crawling on my kitchen cabinets or anything. They pretty much stick to the very back of the basement and out on our back porch.
Comment by michele james-parham — June 4, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
Well that’s not too bad - they used to slither around my bathroom *argh* I gt the heebeejeebies just thinking about it. I did however, try and adopt a very brave mouse that decided to make himself at home here. I named him and everything
But as soon as I bought the mouse house he split, I guess he figured out what I was up to!
Comment by Anok — June 6, 2008 @ 10:00 am