Trick or Treat? Spiders and Centipedes
October arrives with changing leaves and cooler weather and we begin to see Halloween Decorations pop up in our neighborhoods and stores. It is the time of year when Sparkly Spiders and tangled webs are strewn across front bushes and trees and if you are lucky enough, you can spot a well-lit home with magic balloon ghosts hovering just above the ground under a tree. The magic of fishing line and night time optical illusion turns spotting spiders, witches and ghosts into a fall sport.
Not so much with the real Spiders that conveniently find this time of year a chance to hunker down indoors and decorate your home. Another October insect that makes its appearance is a House Centipede. An overview of both of these fascinating and yet unwelcome visitors will prepare you with a battle plan to eradicate them and protect your home.
The House Centipede
Spotting a house centipede scuttling across your bathroom or basement floor at lightning speed when the lights go on can be startling because of their spooky appearance. They are yellow ~ grey, 1 1/2” long and have up to 15 pairs of long legs, a total of 30 that can move fast. They prefer to hang out in dark, cool and damp areas. House centipedes have a reputation for killing other unwelcome pests in your home. Their diet and food source of roaches, termites, spiders, flies, silverfish, and termites can indicate that you also have a problem with those prey because insects live where they can eat.
The House Centipede is also known as the, ‘Where there is sMoKe, there is FiRe Insect’ by our Angel Pest Technicians and can signal a much bigger problem with other insects residing in your home.
If they feel threatened, the larger species of house centipedes may bite or scratch with the claws on their legs. It is best not to handle centipedes. Dark cool places such as floor drains, cement block walls, floor clutter like boxes provide excellent hiding places and if a food source is present, they can survive a long time if left undisturbed.
It is time to make the House Centipede very uncomfortable and to get rid of them for good. You will need to eliminate their food source and their hiding places. Warm and safe homes may also attract centipedes inside to reproduce. Any way you look at it, they are residing in your home because of the other very unwelcome insects. We thoroughly evaluate any potential outside entry locations and their inside hiding places and recommend a treatment protocol.
Spiders
Spiders can evoke great fear and some are poisonous, so it is best to eliminate them immediately. They can create masterpiece spiderwebs and cobwebs in ceiling fans and other places that can be hard to reach and clean.
Some tips are to thoroughly vacuum your home from ceiling to floor and everything in-between to remove cobwebs and eggs. You may consider limiting the outdoor lighting and make sure to remove non-essential items from your home’s perimeter.
Many species of spiders are poisonous and there are over 50,000 species of this 8-legged arachnid. Brown recluse spiders are poisonous and common. They like to hide in dark undisturbed areas of your home such as attics, closets, cabinets and drawers allowing them to go unnoticed until the population reaches nuisance and unsafe numbers. The spider’s spinnerets extrude silk for their web. Some spiders build dream catcher type of spiral orbital webs that are so much a part of Halloween decorations. Other types of spiders, like the black widow and brown recluse produce tangled cobwebs. Some species of spiders build webs only for shelter instead waiting to trap prey they stalk and ambush their unsuspecting victims.
As with all insects and pests, we recommend sealing all openings within the home’s perimeter and we can assist in identifying openings that are seldom noticed by a homeowner.
Contact Angel Pest Control - We’ll Get Those Little Devils
We have convenient and effective seasonal treatments and, in many cases, the work is performed from the outside of your home. As long as your pets are not outside during treatment, you do not have to be home during the treatment. Once your Angel Pest Control technician completes treatment, you will be notified. Our Angel Pest Control Team has been in business since 1987 and has always been family owned.
