How to get rid of house centipedes
House centipedes are creepy but beneficial — they hunt roaches, silverfish, and spiders. If you have a lot of centipedes, you have a lot of prey insects. The real fix is eliminating what they're eating, plus reducing moisture.
Tools
- No special tools needed.
Materials
- +Place in bathroom corners and basement floor edges to catch centipedes and the prey insects feeding them.
- +Dust along baseboards and in damp basement corners.
- +Seal cracks around pipes, baseboards, foundation gaps where they enter from outside.
- +Centipedes can't survive long below 50% humidity.
Steps
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1
Treat the prey problem first
Centipedes follow food. If you have silverfish, roaches, or spiders, deal with those (see our other guides) and centipede numbers will collapse on their own.
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2
Drop the humidity
Centipedes dehydrate fast. A basement or bathroom dehumidifier set to 40–50% kills most centipede populations within weeks.
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3
Set sticky traps along walls
Centipedes run along the floor-wall edge. Glue boards in corners catch them on the move.
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4
Dust DE in voids
Apply a thin DE layer in cracks, under baseboards, behind bathroom vanities, in basement floor cracks.
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5
Seal exterior entry points
Caulk gaps around foundation, basement windows, dryer vent, hose bibs. Most centipedes enter from outside.