How to get rid of centipedes like a pro

House centipedes — creepy crawlies with spindly pairs of legs — often look like something out of a nightmare. You might be tempted to reach for a heavy shoe when you see these arthropods scurrying at full speed along your baseboards. 

Not so fast. Centipedes can be an unlikely ally and personal exterminator, feeding on other household pests such as spiders, cockroaches, termites and ants, noted Jackson Means, an entomologist who studies and identifies myriapods (a category of arthropods that includes centipedes and millipedes) for the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, Virginia.

But if your centipede problem is a little more severe than just the odd sighting here or there, you might try a few ways to get rid of them, ranging from sticky traps you set out to hiring professional pest control.

How do you get rid of centipedes in your house?

Only three main species of centipedes usually find their way into homes, Means said. The yellowish-gray scutigera coleoptrata, or house centipede, is the most common species — known for 15 pairs of feathery long legs.

In some areas, you may see other species of centipedes, including the scolopendra, a type of centipede that shows up in arid desert areas such as Texas and New Mexico; and lithobiomorpha, or stone centipede, that’s typically found under rocks.

Unlike millipedes — which are herbivores and eat mostly decaying plant matter, leaf litter, tree bark and mulch — centipedes are venomous predators that hunt smaller insects as prey.

Even certain pest control experts are pro-centipede and, as a general rule, don’t advocate getting rid of them at all. Kevin Carrillo, the director of operations at M&M Pest Control in New York City, told us, “I always try to convey to my clients who seem really gung ho about taking out centipedes that if you’ve seen one or two, that centipede is doing the same job that I’m doing for you, but they’re doing it for free.”

Usually centipedes aren’t populous enough to be considered an infestation, and in those instances, Carrillo said he doesn’t recommend any type of chemical control. He has seen certain cases where a larger number congregate, “generally when you have a larger, damp basement that’s not well-lit, nor well insulated, meaning you probably have a bunch of other kinds of insects.” For the latter situation, you’ll want to take some steps to reduce their numbers. 

Hire a professional pest control service

While treatment varies based on the size and layout of the space, Carrillo estimated that a customer would pay around $200 to $300 for a perimeter treatment in New York City and as low as $75 in more suburban areas.

A pest control service can help you identify causes for centipede infestations and keep various other critters at bay.

One catch-all solution a pest management company might implement is spraying some sort of barrier insecticide or repellent along the baseboards of the perimeter of your home (for example, along the inside walls of the basement) to target multiple pests at once. Carrillo said that the goal is to deter insects, such as the centipede, from roaming along the inside edges of your home.

The frequency of reapplication depends on the nature of your pest issues. Carrillo said the average customer is serviced once a month since most commercial materials have a decent efficacy for 30 days.

DIY removal

To monitor the situation at home, invest in sticky traps. Carrillo prefers sticky traps from Tasty Banana or Catchmaster, brands that can be found online at retailers such as Amazon. The glue is generally nontoxic for pets — unless ingested — but you probably want to keep traps out of reach in case your furry friend gets stuck.

Carrillo described basic glue boards as a fantastic, inexpensive method for population control that targets a variety of pests and helps you keep tabs on how many creatures you’re seeing in a given area or time frame.

For the best results, get the right size. A Goldilocks middle ground is a trap that’s big enough that insects won’t sidestep but small enough that you, the person laying the trap, won’t get caught on it. Carillo singled out the standard size, 4-by-7-inch Catchmasters as a good size.

How often you need to replace them will depend on the extent of your insect problems, but monitoring them every few days will usually give you a good sense of what you’re dealing with. Unusually high numbers of insects in a certain place might signal that you need to focus on sealing up potential entry points.

Means suggested an even gentler solution: “Removing them and putting them outside is totally fine.”

How do centipedes get into your house?

Like many other types of insects, centipedes are attracted to moisture and will enter the home by slipping into cracks in the facade, under doors, through ventilation and along water pipelines. 

“They’re looking for cool, damp areas where they can hunt,” Means explained, adding that a dark basement is an ideal hiding place. Another easy watering hole for centipedes is in your bathtub.

Centipedes are looking for cool, damp areas where they can hunt.

Jackson Means

Carrillo singled out at least six entry points in your bathroom for a house centipede to enter the home, all of which connect to the water lines: along the hot and cold knob for your shower, along the shower head line coming out of the wall itself, directly from the bathtub faucet, along the shutoff line for the toilet, the hot and cold valves for the bathroom sink, and the drainage line for the bathroom sink. “Each and every one of those has some kind of opening around it that goes into a wall that a house centipede can come out of,” he said.

How do you keep centipedes from coming back?

Limiting a centipede’s food source with the methods above will give it fewer reasons to stick around. Introducing light to the dark and damp conditions these arthropods favor is another way to get rid of centipedes.

“If you can’t get sunlight in your basement, the next best thing is to reduce dampness,” Carrillo said, adding that a large dehumidifier can minimize excess moisture in more spacious areas such as the basement.

Securing the perimeter of your home is a critical step to keep creepy crawlies from breaching your walls. Carrillo suggested running silicone caulk along any crevices and cracks in the baseboards at floor level.

What’s next?

While a centipede bite can cause sharp pain, like a bee sting, they’re individualistic creatures that don’t nest in homes and aren’t aggressive enough to approach humans. Means said that centipedes are mostly harmless.

If you continue seeing only one or two centipedes here and there, it’s ok to let those little guys do their thing. “If you’re not seeing them in large quantities, the best thing you can do is leave them alone,” Carrillo advised. “If you start killing off those centipedes, the first thing that’s going to happen is you’re going to notice that you have another pest problem.”

Instead of worrying about how to get rid of centipedes, consider establishing a home maintenance routine that will keep all the other critters away.