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Centipedes are long, flattened, many-segmented insects that have one pair of legs per segment. The house centipede is 1 to 1 1/2 inches long with very long, slender antennae and 15 pairs of very long legs. The body is gray-yellow and has three stripes running its length. The legs of the centipede are banded in white.
Centipedes like to live in moist environments. The house centipede can live outdoors as well as indoors and is often found in damp basements, moist closets, or in bathrooms. Like all centipedes, the first pair of legs have poison glands that are used to kill prey such as insects or spiders. Centipedes can bite humans, but the bite is seldom worse than a bee sting.
Centipedes causing a nuisance outdoors can be controlled by removing favorable harborage areas such as piles of grass, stones, boards, leaves, tall grass, moist mulch beds, and compost.
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