How to Get Rid of Centipedes at Home in Bangladesh

Cockroaches and house lizards are part of life in almost every Bangladeshi home. We complain, but we live with them. Centipedes are different. One sudden dash across the bathroom floor at night, all those legs moving at once, and nobody in the house sleeps well.

The good news: centipedes rarely bite, and you can get rid of them for good by fixing three things they need from your home: damp, food, and hiding places.

Meet the Centipede: Two Kinds You Will See

Centipedes are not insects. They belong to a separate group of small animals with one pair of legs on each body segment. They hunt at night and eat other small creatures, including cockroaches, silverfish and spiders. In Bangladeshi homes you will usually meet one of two types.

Type	What it looks like	Where you see it
House centipede	Small, greyish yellow body, very long striped legs, runs extremely fast	Bathroom walls, kitchen corners, near drains, storerooms
Large centipede (Scolopendra type)	Thick, flat body, shorter legs, brown, reddish or dark with an orange head, can grow longer than your hand	Ground floor rooms, under flower pots and bricks, around gardens and drains, especially in the rainy season

The small, leggy one looks scarier but is mostly harmless. The big, thick one is the centipede that gives people a painful bite, so treat it with more care.

While we are here: the common house lizard (house gecko) is not an insect either. Geckos eat insects too, so a home with lots of lizards usually has plenty of bugs for them to hunt. The same food supply attracts centipedes.

Why Centipedes Come Into Your Home

A centipede in the house is a sign. It found something it needs. Fix these and it leaves (or never comes).

• Damp. Centipedes dry out and die in dry air, so they live where it is wet: bathrooms, under the kitchen sink, behind the washing machine, damp walls with seepage. Bangladesh’s monsoon humidity makes every home inviting from June to October.
• Food. They follow their prey. A home with cockroaches, silverfish, ants or spiders is a buffet.
• Hiding places. In daytime they hide in dark, still spots: piles of old newspapers, cardboard boxes, shoes on the floor, under beds and almirahs, behind stored rice sacks.
• Easy ways in. Open bathroom floor drains, gaps under doors, cracks in walls and floors, and holes where pipes and wires enter the house.
• Rain. Heavy rain floods their outdoor hiding spots, so after a storm they often move indoors, especially into ground floor flats.

Are Centipedes Dangerous?

Mostly no, but the big ones deserve respect. Every centipede has venom, which it uses to kill its prey. It almost never bites people unless it is trapped or pressed, for example when you put on a shoe it is hiding in, or roll onto it in bed.

• A small house centipede bite feels like a bee sting at worst, and many cannot even break the skin.
• A large centipede bite is genuinely painful: sharp burning pain, redness and swelling, usually with two small puncture marks.
• Most bites get better on their own within a few hours to two days.
• Serious problems such as a strong allergic reaction or an infected wound are rare, but they do happen. Small children and people with allergies or weak immunity need closer watching.

So the goal is not panic. It is keeping them out of beds, shoes and children’s play areas.

How to Get Rid of Centipedes: Step by Step

Killing the one you see does not solve the problem. Changing the conditions does. Work through these steps in order.

1. Find the hotspots. Note where you keep seeing them. Usually it is the bathroom, the kitchen sink area, the storeroom or the ground floor. Check at night with a torch; that is when they move.
2. Dry out the home. This is the most important step.
   • Fix leaking taps, pipes and the water line under the sink.
   • Squeeze the bathroom floor dry after use and keep the door open or the exhaust fan running.
   • Do not leave wet mops, buckets or clothes lying around.
   • Open windows on sunny days. If you have an AC, its dry mode helps in the monsoon. In damp storerooms, a dehumidifier is worth it.
   • Get wall seepage repaired. Damp walls are centipede highways.
3. Cover the drains. In Bangladeshi homes, bathroom and balcony floor drains are a main entry point. Use a drain cover with a fine mesh, or a closing (cockroach proof) floor trap. Cover the drain at night if it has no lid.
4. Seal the gaps. Fill cracks in walls and floors, the gaps around pipes and wires, and holes behind the kitchen cabinet with cement, wall putty or silicone sealant. Fit a rubber strip (door sweep) under main and bathroom doors, and keep window nets in good shape.
5. Clear the clutter. Get rid of old newspapers and empty cartons. Store things in sealed plastic boxes, lift them off the floor, and leave a small gap between stored items and the wall. Keep shoes on a rack, not on the floor.
6. Starve them out. Control cockroaches, ants and silverfish with gel bait and good kitchen hygiene: no food left open, no dirty dishes overnight, bins with lids. When their food disappears, centipedes move on.
7. Clean up around the house. Ground floor and houses with gardens: move flower pots, bricks, firewood, broken tiles and leaf piles away from the walls. Clean the outside drains. Trim plants that touch the walls.
8. Set sticky traps. Glue boards (sold for cockroaches and rats) placed along walls, behind the toilet and under sinks catch centipedes well. They also show you where they are coming from.
9. Use insecticide on the trouble spots. For a bad problem, use a household insect spray or insecticide dust labelled for crawling insects. Spray or dust into cracks, along skirting, around drains and door frames, not into the open air. Read the label, keep children and pets out of the room until it dries, and never use it on beds, food areas or toys.
10. Deal with the one in front of you. Trap it under a glass or bowl, slide a sheet of paper under it, and throw it outside. Or use a broom or insect spray. Do not grab a large one with bare hands, and wear shoes when chasing it.

Keep it up for two to four weeks. You should see fewer and fewer of them as the damp and food go away.

Home Remedies: What Works and What Is Hype

You will find many “natural” tricks online. Here is an honest view.

Remedy	Does it work?
Keeping the home dry	Yes. This is the real fix, everything else is support.
Sticky traps	Yes, for catching and for spotting where they come from.
Salt or bleaching powder poured in drains	Partly. It cleans the drain, but a mesh cover keeps them out far better.
Kerosene in drains	Not recommended. It is a fire risk and the fumes are unhealthy indoors.
Peppermint, clove or neem oil sprays	Weak. A strong smell may push them away for a short time, but it does not remove them.
Cinnamon or chilli powder along walls	Weak, and it makes a mess.

In short: smells and powders may help a little, but they cannot beat a dry, sealed, clutter free home.

When to Call Pest Control

Call a professional pest control service if:

• You still see centipedes regularly after three or four weeks of the steps above.
• You keep finding large centipedes inside, especially in bedrooms.
• You have a baby or small child at home and do not want to handle insecticides yourself.
• The source seems to be inside walls, under the floor or in shared building drains you cannot reach.

Ask the company which chemicals they use, how long to stay out of the room, and whether the treatment also covers cockroaches. In an apartment building, ask the building committee to treat common drains and the ground floor too, or the centipedes will simply come back.

If a Centipede Bites You: First Aid

Stay calm. Most bites are painful but not dangerous, and simple first aid is enough.

1. Wash the bite gently with soap and clean water.
2. Put a cold compress or ice wrapped in a cloth on it for 10 to 15 minutes at a time to ease pain and swelling.
3. Keep the bitten hand or foot raised and still.
4. Take a common painkiller such as paracetamol if needed. An antihistamine can help with itching. Follow the dose on the pack, and ask a doctor or pharmacist before giving any medicine to a child.
5. Do not cut the wound, try to suck out venom, or apply lime paste, toothpaste, kerosene or herbal pastes. These can cause infection.
6. Watch the bite over the next two days.

Go to a doctor or hospital right away if:

• There is trouble breathing, swelling of the face, lips or throat, dizziness or fainting. This could be an allergic reaction and is an emergency.
• The person bitten is a baby or small child, or the bite is on the face, neck or head.
• There is chest pain, vomiting, or pain and swelling spreading up the arm or leg.

See a doctor soon if:

• Pain is still severe after a few hours, or swelling grows instead of shrinking.
• After a day or two you see increasing redness, warmth, pus, red streaks from the bite, or a fever. These are signs of infection.
• The person is not up to date on tetanus vaccination. A doctor may advise a tetanus shot.

This section is general information, not medical advice. When in doubt, see a doctor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a centipede the same as a millipede?

No. A millipede is slow, round and harmless, curls up when touched, and eats rotting plants. A centipede is flat, fast and hunts other bugs.

Why do I see centipedes more in the rainy season?

Rain floods their outdoor hiding places and pushes humidity up indoors, so they move into homes, especially ground floor flats.

Can a centipede bite kill you?

Deaths are extremely rare worldwide. Most bites heal within a couple of days. Allergic reactions and infection are the real risks, which is why a bad reaction or a bite on a small child needs a doctor.

Do centipedes lay eggs in the house?

The small house centipede can breed indoors if the home stays damp. Drying out the home is what stops that.

Should I leave them alone because they eat cockroaches?

They do eat cockroaches, but you should fix the cockroach problem directly. A home with no bugs and no damp has no centipedes either.

Final Word

A centipede in the house is scary, but it is also a message: your home is damp, has bugs, or has an open door for it somewhere. Dry the bathroom and kitchen, cover the drains, seal the cracks, clear the clutter and get the cockroaches under control. Do that for a few weeks and the night time surprise visits stop. And if one does bite, wash it, cool it, and watch it, and see a doctor if anything looks worse instead of better.

Sources

• StatPearls (NCBI Bookshelf): Centipede Envenomation
• World Journal of Clinical Cases: review of clinical consequences of centipede bites
• Healthline: Centipede bites
• WebMD: How to care for centipede bites
• Medical News Today: Centipede bites
• ZooKeys: taxonomic review of Scolopendra centipedes in Southeast Asia
• Better Termite: How to get rid of house centipedes