Mega Pest: House Centipedes

Most of the insects and spiders living in your basement are good for your house. They eat other little buggies, or they feed off the dirt and slime in drains and corners. Brown house centipedes are no exception -- except when they multiply out of control, or start showing up in places they're not wanted. 

"Scutigera coleoptrata" by Bruce Marlin - Own work http://www.cirrusimage.com/centipedes_millipedes.htm. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG#/media/File:Scutigera_coleoptrata.JPG

Here's what you need to know about centipedes in your house

Taxonomy: The house centipede is an arthropod in the genus Scutigera (class Chilopoda). 


Description: House centipedes are about an inch long and have 15 pairs of long legs. They're fast, and prowl your house at night, eating dead insects and preying on living ones. Centipedes are essentially all carnivorous.

Lifestyle: This centipede hangs out in dark corners of basements and garages, and prowls around by night in search of food and mates. For this reason, it sometimes winds up in contact with humans.
 
Is it venomous? Yes, but only a little. All centipedes, more or less, bite with modified front legs that are basically fangs. These are called "forcipules," and some species can really bite. Little house centipedes, though, are nothing to worry about.

Damage to your house: None. In fact, they eat other pests. So going after the centipedes in your house will kill other beneficial animals like spiders as well.

What you can do: There are a number of ways to deal with household bugs  like this. The easiest option is to let them alone, since you'll probably never get bitten. But if you have a large outbreak, a good option is spider sticky traps. You set them and forget them, and they attract and catch all kinds of centipedes and spiders.

Mega Pest: Brown Recluse Spiders

Most of the insects and spiders living in your basement are good for your house, basically because they eat each other, or bits of dirt, or crumbs. This spider, not so much.

"Brown Recluse" by Rosa Pineda - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_Recluse.jpg#/media/File:Brown_Recluse.jpg

Here's what you need to know about the brown recluse

Taxonomy: The brown recluse is a spider in the genus Loxosceles. There are several other recluse spiders in this genus, but the one most likely to be in your basement is Loxosceles reclusa. 

Description: The brown recluse is a medium-sized brown spider with long legs. One reliable characteristic is the violin-shaped marking on its back.

Lifestyle: This spider hangs out in dark corners of basements and garages, and prowls around by night in search of food and mates. For this reason, it sometimes winds up in contact with humans.

Is it venomous? Yes, extremely. The bite of  the brown recluse isn't very painful at first, but gets worse and worse over days and weeks as the venom destroys cells. In very bad cases, large open wounds can form.

Damage to your house: None. In fact, they eat other pests. So going after the brown recluses in your house, which will kill other spiders as well, does have a downside.

What you can do: There are a number of ways to deal with spiders like this. The easiest option is to let them alone, since you'll probably never get bitten. But if you have a large outbreak, a good option is spider sticky traps . You set them and forget them, and they attract and catch all kinds of spiders, including the brown recluse.

By Nicholas Ta (ta-graphy) (Wikimedia submission) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons