How to Get Rid of House Centipedes

To get rid of house centipedes, dry the damp rooms they hunt in, seal the gaps they walk through, and clear out the small insects they feed on. Vacuum or catch the ones you see. Set sticky traps to learn which prey is present. Run a dehumidifier in the basement, fix leaks, and caulk cracks around pipes and the foundation. Spray treatments add little on their own, since replacements keep arriving while moisture and prey remain. One or two centipedes need no campaign. Nightly sightings mean a damp spot or a hidden bug population worth finding.

Why are house centipedes in your bathroom?

Short answer: they followed water and food. The house centipede, Scutigera coleoptrata, is about an inch long, gray, with rows of very long legs and long antennae, and it lives both outdoors and indoors wherever it stays damp (University of Maryland Extension). Bathrooms, damp basements, and closets suit it best. It hunts at night, so the one sprinting across the tub when you flip the light on was already out working.

What it hunts matters more than the scare. House centipedes feed on silverfish, firebrats, carpet beetle larvae, cockroaches, spiders, and other small arthropods (Penn State Extension). Penn State puts the core insight plainly: centipedes seen often signal that some prey arthropod is abundant, which may point to a bigger problem than the centipedes themselves. Treat the sighting as a report from a scout. Something edible lives nearby.

Striped back plates and legs much longer than the body mark the house centipede, a hunter of smaller indoor insects.

Entry is easier than most people guess. documented indoor harborages include the soil under concrete slabs reached through expansion cracks and sump openings, the hollows of cement block walls entered through uncapped blocks and gaps around pipes, floor drains without water traps, cardboard boxes stored on bare slabs, and any cool damp void such as a crawl space (Penn State Extension). Clawlike jaws are the venom-tipped front appendages the centipede uses to grip and subdue that prey. Outdoors, the same animals overwinter in sheltered spots and lay eggs in or on soil, then slip inside where damp habitat and food wait (Northeastern IPM Center).

Do not confuse them with millipedes. Millipedes eat decaying plant matter and curl up when touched. Centipedes run fast, hunt live prey, and carry one pair of legs per body segment. A slow worm-like crawler near the foundation in autumn is likely a millipede problem with different fixes. A fast gray sprinter with trailing legs in the tub is the house centipede, and the rest of this guide fits it.

How do you get rid of house centipedes for good?

Work in this order: catch, monitor, dry, seal, starve. Each step is cheap. Together they beat any spray can.

Start by catching what is visible. Vacuum centipedes along baseboards, behind the washer and dryer, under basement stairs, and around floor drains. If you prefer not to kill one, cover it with a cup, slide a card beneath, and carry it outside, which Maryland Extension lists as the sensible option for anyone who cannot live with it indoors (University of Maryland Extension). Night checks with a flashlight find far more than daytime checks, since these hunters move mainly in the dark.

Then set monitors before you change anything. Monitor trap is the working name for a plain sticky glue board laid flat along a baseboard. Penn State recommends them as the first diagnostic move: they catch centipedes and, more usefully, reveal which other arthropods share the room (Penn State Extension). Place them in bathrooms, basements, behind appliances, and near drains. Date each one. The catch after a week tells you whether you face a centipede visit or a stocked pantry of prey.

What brings them	What removes it
Damp basement or crawl space air	Dehumidifier plus ventilation, with leaks fixed
Sweating cold-water pipes and drips	Pipe insulation and prompt plumbing repair
Dry or missing floor-drain traps	Screens on drains, traps kept primed with water
Gaps around pipes and slab cracks	Caulk and sealant at every penetration
Cardboard boxes on bare concrete	Sealed plastic bins raised off the floor
Silverfish, roaches, spiders as prey	Treat the prey pest with its own guide
Leaf litter and mulch at the foundation	Clearance strip and trimmed mulch depth

Drying deserves the most effort because it pays twice. Lower moisture drives out both the centipede and much of its prey. Increase ventilation in baths and laundries and make sure fans vent outdoors rather than into the attic. Cover cold pipes that sweat, keep floor drains clean and working, and pull mulch and rotting leaves back from the foundation wall (Northeastern IPM Center). In basements that smell musty despite ventilation, run a dehumidifier and keep the room closed while it works. Fix the gutter or grade problem outside too, since water pooling at the foundation feeds indoor damp through every slab crack.

Sealing comes next, while the room is drying. Caulk cracks around pipes, baseboards, and where walls meet the slab. Fit screens in floor drains. Seal uncapped block tops and missing mortar in basement block walls, the exact routes Penn State names for slab and block entry (Penn State Extension). Swap cardboard storage for lidded plastic bins and lift them off bare concrete, which removes both shelter and the damp microclimate underneath.

Starving them is the step people skip. Identify the prey on your traps and treat that pest directly. Silverfish point to the same damp paper and glue habitat, so the silverfish removal guide pairs well here. Roach nymphs on a trap mean following the German roach removal plan. Spiders in the catch suggest reading the house spider guide, and ant trails call for the ant removal plan. Each prey pest removed is meals cancelled for every centipede in the room.

Damp rooms with steady prey traffic hold centipedes longest, so drying plus prey control clears them faster than sprays.

About sprays: hold off. School pest programs note there is generally no reason to treat for house centipedes, and extension educators in Nebraska advise that pesticides are often unnecessary, with label directions mandatory whenever a product is used (Northeastern IPM Center; University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension). Broadcast spraying a bathroom for a predator that returns nightly wastes money and coats the room in residue. If you do use a product, pick one labeled for indoor centipede use, treat only cracks and harborages, keep kids and pets away until dry, and read every line of the label first.

Run sticky traps as a two-week moisture test

Trap counts answer the question sprays never do: is this damp, or is this dinner? Number each trap, sketch trap spots on paper, and log two numbers nightly for fourteen days: centipedes caught and prey insects caught. The ratio decides the next purchase.

Two-week catch pattern	Reading	Next move
Few of either	Passing visitor	Keep one monitor per room, recheck monthly
Many centipedes, little prey	Moisture-driven	Dehumidifier, venting, and leak repair first
Little of either but prey rising	Pantry filling	Treat the prey pest now, before hunters settle
Both counts climbing	Established damp plus prey	Full routine above, then repeat the test
Zero after week one	Resolved	Remove most traps, keep drains screened

A moisture-driven pattern with bare traps except for centipedes is the classic basement case: enough damp for the hunter, too dry or clean for much prey. A prey-heavy pattern with roach nymphs or silverfish alongside means the grocery store opened first and guards arrived second. Spend against the reading, not against the scare.

Are house centipedes dangerous, and when should you act?

They are startling, not dangerous. Pest programs class them as a nuisance pest rather than a public health or structural threat, with a high action threshold (Northeastern IPM Center). Bites are rare because the animal flees first; larger specimens have jaws able to break skin and cause a local reaction, yet encounters needing care stay uncommon. Cats sometimes bat them around without harm, and the centipede loses that contest most nights.

That leaves a simple decision rule. A single centipede every few weeks in a dry home is a visitor. Catch it or vacuum it and move on. Several per week in one bathroom or basement zone is a work order: moisture plus prey, in that room, now. Whole-house sightings across dry upper floors are unusual and deserve a closer look at crawl spaces, sump pits, and block-wall voids, the hidden damp cores of many homes.

Long antennae up front and a matching tail pair can make it hard to tell head from rear, another reason to trap rather than chase.

Call a professional when the routine stalls. Fair triggers: nightly sightings two weeks into drying and sealing, traps heavy with roaches or other prey you cannot clear, or damp you cannot source, such as water wicking through slabs or block. A good tech finds the moisture path, treats the prey infestation at its source, and seals voids you cannot reach. Ask what prey they found and what moisture reading they took. Those two answers separate a real diagnosis from a spray-and-invoice visit.

Keep perspective at the end. A home that supports centipedes usually supports something smaller first, and the same habits that clear them protect against the wider pest index: dry rooms, sealed gaps, stored goods in bins. Learn the resident hunter in the centipede hub, browse its neighbors in Spiders & Crawlers, and if the traps keep filling after honest effort, hand the moisture meter to a local pro through the pro finder.

How to: How to Get Rid of House Centipedes

A two-week damp-room routine that clears current centipedes and removes the moisture and prey that bring replacements.

Time: 14 d

You'll need

• sticky monitor traps
• caulk
• drain screens
• sealed storage bins

Tools

• dehumidifier
• flashlight
• caulk gun

1. Catch the ones you can see

   Vacuum centipedes in bathrooms, basements, and along baseboards, or cover one with a cup and carry it outside. Work at night with a flashlight, when they hunt.

2. Lay monitor traps

   Place sticky traps flat along basement and bathroom baseboards, behind the washer, and near floor drains. Note the date so you can compare catches after two weeks.

3. Dry the room

   Run a dehumidifier, fix dripping taps and pipes, vent bath fans to the outside, and insulate cold water lines that sweat. Move cardboard boxes off bare concrete into sealed bins.

4. Seal the entries

   Caulk cracks around pipes, baseboards, and the foundation. Fit screens over floor drains and seal gaps where block walls meet slabs.

5. Starve them and recheck

   Treat whatever prey the traps caught, using the matching guide for that pest. After two weeks, compare trap counts. Falling numbers mean the room is drying out and emptying of prey.

Frequently asked questions

What kills house centipedes the fastest?

A vacuum or a shoe ends one centipede in seconds. For a lasting fix, dry the room, seal the gaps, and remove the insects they hunt. Killing individuals without changing damp or prey means replacements arrive within days.

Why do I keep finding centipedes in my bathtub?

They hunt at night in damp bathrooms and fall into tubs and sinks they cannot climb out of. Check for dripping taps, weak fan ventilation, and gaps around pipes. A tub visitor now and then is normal. Nightly ones point to steady moisture.

Do house centipedes bite people?

Almost never. They use clawlike jaws on small prey, and larger ones can leave a bite that may cause a local reaction, but they run from people and are treated as harmless. Do not handle them with bare hands, and teach kids to leave them alone.

Will a dehumidifier get rid of centipedes?

It removes one of the two things they need. Dry air in basements and crawl spaces makes the habitat hostile, but pair it with sealing entry gaps and treating prey insects. Damp alone rarely explains nightly sightings.

Should I call pest control for centipedes?

Usually no. Try drying, sealing, and prey control for two weeks first. Call a pro if sightings continue after that, or if traps reveal a real prey infestation such as roaches. The pro visit then targets the root cause, not just the centipedes.

Useful links (4)

1. Penn State Extension: House Centipedes— extension.psu.edu
2. Northeastern IPM Center: House Centipede— northeastipm.org
3. University of Maryland Extension: Centipedes— extension.umd.edu
4. UNL Extension: House Centipedes (Lancaster County)— newsroom.unl.edu

Photo credits

Thank you to Shi Annan, Gogerr, Nikoletta.petropoulou and Holger Krisp for sharing these beautiful photographs and helping bring this guide to life.

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY 4.0