It's Time
As the days go by, the numbers start to increase. A centipede has now appeared. a well-known but disagreeable sight. Dread begins to set in.
Having hesitated for so long, you reach for the shoe with a heavy heart. As you try to kill it, you're overcome with fear, anger, and disgust, but you don't know what it's done and what it'll do.
Friends Or Foe
Centipedes are creepy. Let’s just face it, they are. They have 30 legs, antennas, and are also poisonous. Ok fine, they’re not too poisonous to humans, but they can bite.
Ok, fine, fine! Their bite only mildly hurts, and it rarely happens, but still! They have 30 legs!! They’re gross, and it’s hard to think of them as friends, but that’s exactly what they are.
A Harmless Creature
The only way a centipede might harm you is if you pick it up and constantly try to provoke it. Even then, the bite will only produce a small bump.
Centipedes save their venom aggression for their prey. To humans, they just want to peacefully coexist with us. They want to live in a friendly, happy environment with us and mostly, they do.
Symbolic Importance
Centipedes are nocturnal, so for the most part, they can roomie-up with their blissfully unaware homeowners. They're also fond of dark, humid climates, so you’re most likely to find them in rooms less traveled, like your bathroom or basement.
However, sometimes you may also find them tattooed on people's faces and bodies as they also symbolize luck and prosperity.
A Cute Little Helper
When a centipede is spotted scurrying about your home, it can be a terrifying ordeal. Especially if you have a fear of insects, otherwise known as Entomophobia.
But here’s a simple trick, just imagine that creepy multi-legged insect is nothing but your cute little teddy helper. Because once you hear what he’s actually up to, that’s exactly what you’ll think!
A Losing Battle
This trick won’t always work, however, and probably not at the start. So, your instincts take over, and before you know it, you're chasing it with a shoe.
Terrified, yet determined, the little guy keeps escaping. Terrified and determined, you keep trying to kill it. It’s a lose-lose game and no life for both of you. Sadly, what you don't realize is that you’re chasing the wrong guy.
Always Watching
A few days later, you go to the bathroom during the night and see something dart across the room. You jump out of there and look back. It’s just that darn centipede again.
Your imagination runs wild as you start to think: what if it gets close to you while you sleep? You go back to bed paranoid. But the centipede is not after you, it's after something else.
Reaching Boiling Point
The tension between centipede and human is at its boiling point. You want it gone, so you come up with a plan.
The centipede has been living in the house for a while now, and although you haven’t seen any of his friends around, you’re scared he’s going to start inviting some over real soon. Little do you know, there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
A Final Goodbye
You wake up during the night again, equipment in hand, heading to the bathroom, ready to execute your plan. It’s a short battle. You have it cornered. But now, you have two choices: take it outside, or kill it.
You’ve had enough of this little guy, but you don’t think he deserves to die, so you take him outside. Job done. Then all hell breaks loose.
A New Problem
Days in, you notice other insects are starting to invade the house again. Suddenly, you realize you haven’t seen these good-for-nothing pests in weeks!
From cockroaches and ants to flies, moths, and spiders. All you need now is another centipede, maybe even the same little guy, but there’s no sign of a single centipede… yet.
Insect Invasion
More days pass, and more pests are spotted. Now, a centipede has arrived. A familiar and unwelcome sight. You gear up, getting ready for round two.
When the centipedes come in, that’s when action is needed. But that’s not very logical or true. In fact, the centipedes are only trying to protect you and your house. And here’s how.
Nature's Pest Controllers
Centipedes are only after one thing, and one thing only. Yup, you guessed it - other bugs! They are nature's very own pest exterminators.
Unlike pest control services, the centipede is not invasive and won’t put chemicals in the air or turn your house upside down. And there are a few other perks that may surprise you!
An Insect With Manners!
Centipedes don’t feed on wood, destroy clothes or spin webs. They’re not even attracted to leftover food, just other bugs that are harmful to your house.
Centipedes are also solitary creatures, so unless you have a big pest problem on your hands that have attracted a few centipedes to your home, they’re not likely to live among other centipedes, so you never have to worry about an infestation. Still not convinced?
The Enemy Of Your Enemy...
If you kill a house centipede, the life you save won’t be your own. It’ll be those of the spiders, roaches, bedbugs, termites, silverfish, and ants all around you.
Put the broom down and hang on for a second. Remember the old adage: the enemy of your enemy is your friend. What house centipedes care about and hunt are the creepy things that you’re living with — and make no mistake: you are.
Creep Factor Of 10
Even though they do have a Creep Factor of 10, which can cause even the most rational person to roll up a gasoline-soaked newspaper and set the house on fire, you should leave them be.
A house centipede is capable of moving 1.25 feet per second, so chances are you won't catch him anyway. Here's what to do instead.
Deal With The Damp
As we’ve said before, centipedes love damp, dark places. So, you might want to invest in a dehumidifier to keep your home dry and free of centipedes. A dehumidifier will also help keep your walls free of mold.
It's also a good idea to clean your house of debris to remove any unnecessary sources of moisture.
Don't Worry Too Much...
If you do allow one centipede to run around your home freely, you don’t have to worry about being overrun by them. Unlike ants or cockroaches, these guys don’t enjoy overpopulation.
However, if you’re still not happy about these guys running rampant around your home, then you can do a few things to try and keep them away. Start by closing any cracks you may have in your walls and floors. Still not sure?
Healthy Respect
Something that helps calm an irrational fear is to learn more about what you are afraid of - we humans tend to fear what we do not know.
But, when you get down to it, centipedes are actually pretty impressive creatures... are you ready to find out some surprising facts about your many-legged companion?
Smaller Than You Think
The thing about house centipedes is... they’re really not that big. It’s those long legs and their antennae that make them look a lot bigger than they really are.
And, although their name means "100 feet," they do not actually have 100 legs... but those legs do some impressive work.
Cowboy Style
Their front two legs double as fangs that are filled with venom to inject their victims with (don't worry, we don't mean you).
Their other legs allow the centipedes to attack and trap insects. They scoop them up cowboy style... their hunting technique is called the "lassoing method". So, how many legs do centipedes actually have?
...It Depends
Depending on the species, a centipede can have as few as 15 pairs of legs or as many as 191 pairs. However, regardless of the species, centipedes always have an odd number of leg pairs. Therefore, they never have exactly 100 legs.
In fact, the house centipede will keep growing legs throughout its entire lifetime. The common house centipede can live as long as five to six years, so that's a lot of legs. But how are centipedes at parenting?
Centipedes Make Good Moms
You probably wouldn't expect a centipede to be a good mother, but a surprising number of them dote on their offspring. Female centipedes lay an egg mass in an underground burrow.
Then, the mother wraps her body around the eggs and remains with them until they hatch, protecting them from harm... how sweet!
They Are Sometimes Kept As Pets
It's surprising but true. There are even centipede breeders, though most centipedes sold in the pet trade are wild-caught. The most common centipedes sold for pets and zoological displays come from the Scolopendra genus.
They require a built substrate of soil and coconut fiber for burrowing, and they can be fed crickets, cockroaches, and mealworms weekly or biweekly. There is, however, something to heed about centipedes.
A Friendly Warning!
If you do notice a centipede in your house, however, don’t ignore the warnings they give you. This means that you may have a pest problem in your house that you're unaware of.
Good news is, you’ve already got a harmless little friend tending to the problem. And all services are free of charge! What a great deal!
The Wild Outdoors
But if you really just don’t want these helpful little guys in your house, then there are some very easy things to do - just take it outside. Whether you do that with your hand or not is completely up to you.
Once it's out, keep the pests it feeds on out too, and make sure to reduce the moisture in and around your house. But sometimes, critters can get into your house no matter how hard you try. Here’s a story about a girl who had such an encounter and had no idea until her friends had to point it out.
Blindsided
She was always getting likes and shares on her pictures. Friends, family, and even strangers would always leave a comment.
She was popular on social media. But one picture was different. It attracted a massive amount of attention overnight and wasn’t just seen by her friends. But what was so unsettling about this photo? Why was everyone talking about it?
Dreams
Ever since she was little, Olivia Nunn dreamed of becoming famous. She avidly watched all the latest celebrity news and gossip and became obsessed with the lavish lives of American stars.
But, as a teen growing up in the town of Middlesbrough, UK, she was beginning to feel like her dreams were out of reach. Little did she know, she would become an internet sensation… just not for the reason she had envisioned.
Aspiring Influencer
When Olivia entered her 20s, she had amassed a small following thanks to social media. She watched makeup and modeling tutorials and taught herself how to style her hair and strike a perfect pose.
She posted her photos on Instagram and Twitter -- she was a natural in front of the camera. Soon, her friends were calling her the “Selfie Queen.” But one selfie, however, was about to change everything. You see, Olivia loved to party.
Friday Night Lights
It was a Friday night. Olivia had clocked out early from her day job and was getting glammed up for an unforgettable night out on the town. She carefully applied her makeup and wore her most flattering outfit.
She was going to make sure that she turned heads tonight -- after all, she was young and single, so why not make the most of it? But it was the selfie that she took the morning after that would have everyone taking a double-take.
The Life Of The Party
Her best friend, Grace, squealed about her outfit when she opened the door. The pair ordered an Uber driver and set off for the night of their lives. She was the life of the party -- shamelessly flirting with strangers and dancing the night away.
With an endless amount of cocktails flowing and the DJ playing her favorite songs under the colored lights, Olivia was unstoppable. Or, at least, she thought she was.
A Rude Awakening
The next morning, Olivia woke up feeling painfully tender. With a blinding headache drilling into her temples, she was sorely regretting her late-night escapades.
She lay in bed texting her friends and thinking that the day couldn’t get any worse. But she had no idea that it was already worse... she just hadn’t realized it yet.
In The Background
Olivia, trying to inject a little humor into the situation, took a photograph of herself and sent it to the group chat. She was still in her makeup and earrings from the night before, but she had pulled on a hoodie for extra comfort sometime during the night.
Little did she realize that she wasn’t alone in the photo. When her friends saw who was in the background, they became hysterical.
Unhappy-Snap
The selfie that Olivia had taken and sent to her friends made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t feeling so great, as can be expected, after a heavy night out.
Staring woefully down at the camera with a pained expression in her eyes, she had no idea that the unhappy snap was about to wreak havoc: in the background was an unwelcome guest.
A Dark Figure
The girls in the chat group that Oliva had sent the photo to were beside themselves when they saw the terrifying guest in the photo.
Fortunately for us, her best friend, Grace Graham, decided to share the photo and story to Twitter. There, only a few inches from her face was a dark nightmare figure.
Going Viral
The photo has since gained over 47.7K likes and 3.7K retweets, leaving thousands of users in utter disbelief. Olivia had become an internet sensation overnight.
But what could she have unwittingly captured that had viewers so equally enthralled and revolted? Well, it’s most people’s worst nightmare. And it was hiding right in the hood of her hoodie.
The Post
Grace shared the photo online and the views racked up in a matter of minutes. Later, she made a comment on her friend’s photo that left Olivia amazed.
In the post, Grace said: "Nearly 24 hours later I still cannot get over Olivia sending a hungover selfie in the group chat, and there's a spider just chilling in her hood." But how did Olivia react?
Her Reaction
Now you might think that when Olivia realized the truth about her unexpected guest, she reacted the way that most people would on discovering a creepy crawly in such close proximity.
But instead of quickly whipping off her hoodie or screaming, Olivia’s reaction to the spider that was just inches from her face was absolutely priceless.
An Overreaction?
Twitter users were quick to voice their opinions on the matter, and hilarity soon followed. It seems as if everyone overreacted to Olivia’s unwanted guest.
One user said: 'No can u imagine anything worse especially hungover,' Another user stated: 'Literally, I'd cry for the next 10 days.' But was Olivia really in any danger?
Painful, But Not Deadly
“There are only three species of spider in the UK that can bite a human – these are the cellar spider, the woodlouse spider, and the false widow spider. No UK spiders are poisonous, and there are no killer spiders living in the UK,” According to heart.co.uk.
“However, their bites can be nasty and cause hours of pain for the victim.”
Spider Season
Unfortunately for arachnophobes, spotting spiders indoors in the UK during early September is a common occurrence. When the weather begins to cool, droves of spiders seek shelter indoors so that they can breed. This period is known as “spider season.”
Prof Adam Hart, an entomologist at the University of Gloucestershire, told the BBC that at least "80 percent of the spiders people see are males".
In order to protect the privacy of those depicted, some names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, are entire.