Everyone is saying they’re harmless, but we read house centipedes cam leave painful bites. I’ve never been bitten, that I know of, but when plagued with centipedes, I’d sometimes wake up with one of two types of mysterious bug bites: itchy, and painful. I know from prior experience that most North American spider bites are only ever itchy, so I always put the painful ones down to house centipedes. I can’t prove it, though. Here are the facts I do know about house centipedes, from empiricle evidence:
They like damp. You’ll find them in damp spots, drains, around toilets, around damp areas in basements, etc. Not exclusively, but predominantly.
They wage a secret war with spiders. Sometimes the spider wins, but usually the centipede does unless it gets trapped by a web.
Alive, they move like the wind. Shockingly, alarmingly fast.
When smacked, they explode into air and legs. So many legs, and not much else.
Despite reports that they control other bugs, they are useless against real nuisance bugs like soldier and stink bugs. And for fly control, spiders do a better job. The only real thing we ever saw centipedes hunting were spiders.
Small glue traps work really well at controlling them. I caution against large glue traps, as they might catch small rodentia, and if you want to know true horror, find a YouTube video of a mouse caught in a glue trap.
Generally bug bites are more often from beetles than centipedes or spiders, meaning centipedes and spiders generally lower how many bug bites you’d be getting.
Dude, what kind of beetles do you have around you‽ Where I live, I’m pretty confident there are no biting beetles - at least, none that can do any harm to humans.
You have way more beetles than you think you do, and far more beetles than you believe can bite. If you can find a spider, there are dozens of beetles that it’s feeding on, in an over simplified way.
Your bullet points sound like an RTS (real time strategy) game’s description of a unit. I would prefer neither around me, let them wage war (or set up home) elsewhere preferably.
Everyone is saying they’re harmless, but we read house centipedes cam leave painful bites. I’ve never been bitten, that I know of, but when plagued with centipedes, I’d sometimes wake up with one of two types of mysterious bug bites: itchy, and painful. I know from prior experience that most North American spider bites are only ever itchy, so I always put the painful ones down to house centipedes. I can’t prove it, though. Here are the facts I do know about house centipedes, from empiricle evidence:
I’m team spider.
This pretty well captures things! Insects that eat other insects are worth rooting for, but like you, I’m on team spider.
I was bitten by one in my sleep as a kid, my foot swelled and it was pretty painful.
Generally bug bites are more often from beetles than centipedes or spiders, meaning centipedes and spiders generally lower how many bug bites you’d be getting.
Dude, what kind of beetles do you have around you‽ Where I live, I’m pretty confident there are no biting beetles - at least, none that can do any harm to humans.
You have way more beetles than you think you do, and far more beetles than you believe can bite. If you can find a spider, there are dozens of beetles that it’s feeding on, in an over simplified way.
Oh, I know we have tons of beetles. They invade our house every fall. I’ve never encountered a biting one, though.
I’ve been bitten in the ass by centipede… twice. Took a few weeks until the bite mark disappear.
Wouldn’t it be inhumane to catch centipedes with glue traps if it is with rodents?
Your bullet points sound like an RTS (real time strategy) game’s description of a unit. I would prefer neither around me, let them wage war (or set up home) elsewhere preferably.
This is true. It was both shocking and alarming how fast it moved when I first spotted one in my room after moving to the east coast.