Attack of the killer centipede's..

[W1ATR]

Just wanted to check and see if any other Connecticut guys are seeing all these damn centipedes around the outside of the house at night.

They're about an inch long, hundred legger jobs that are a reddish brown/black in color and seem to like getting onto light colored surfaces, like my light colored garage and house siding.

Now it's 3am and like a good neighborhood stalker, I'm walking around outside with a big flashlight and camera, but my cheap camera won't focus on one up close, and won't show them if I back up a bit. Upon application of the million megawatt spotlight, I see there's a lot of them. Now I don't mean a few, or a bunch, or even a mildly alarming amount. I mean THERE'S A FREAKIN ZILLION OF 'EM. They're literally crawling everywhere, on the ground, on my house, my vehicles, the garage doors, falling into my hair from trees, and there's thousands on the ground. I couldn't take one step without getting a half dozen. They are only out between midnight and 4am, after that, there won't be a single one to see.

By this time, my skin was crawling and I drug ass back in the house before something happens and there's no witnesses. As I type this, I'm sitting here scratching non existent itch's.

Now I remember the gypsy moth invasion from the 80's and these are nowhere as squishy and nasty as those were.

I was reading how centipedes will eat other insects, and I don't particularly want to poison blast anything either, so I was just wondering if anyone else is seeing these, or has a good link for a site to ID them and get a little info.(Like when they will be going away.)

TIA,
Jared   

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Possibly a result of the wet season so far, Jared. I get them up here as well, especially once the firewood was thrown into the basement. Seems a few would hitch a ride and be found wandering around the house.

They do eat a number of other pest insects, doesn't do much to offset their 'creepy' factor though. The big 'uns found elsewhere can actually bite or sting and make you sick with their poison.

Drying the area out and removing rotted timber and compost usually helps, but they still have a way of appearing at the damnedest times, in the damnedest places.

[w3jn]

I think they were just admiring your GPT-750 and were trying to get a peek at it thru the window, Jared 

[Pete, WA2CWA]

[W1RKW]

Jared,
No centipedes here or very little.  But inundated with the black invaders, carpenter ants.  Went to war last week and carpet bombed the yard. I don't like using poisons either but it's either the poison or living with ants and I detest ants and insects in general.  So far they've been kept at bay and hope to have forced them over to my neighbors place instead.

[W1ATR]

I think they were just admiring your GPT-750 and were trying to get a peek at it thru the window, Jared 

lol, they're not the only one's that want to know what the heck is taking so long. Seems like every time I get a head of steam going, something blows up/burns down/craps out around here. I only get a few months out of the year where I can settle down a bit and dig into that rig. Right now the road block is sitting with L606, that big choke on the left side in the PS. While trying to test the new modder, (last month, lol), it'll keep tapping out the breaker. I found that choke (5-15H, 750ma) doesn't acutally show a short to ground, but it won't make it past the hi-pot, so I have another one out of the parts box and just need the time to test it and shove it in there.

This problems been kicking my butt for a while now. I thought it was in the modder as it would pass a sweep real nice, but as soon as soon as my big mouth got on there, click went the breaker.(one for the final) So after two complete passes through the modder looking for my f'up, and with the advice of an old b/cast guy, I started looking through the PS.

Right now work is so busy, the radio rooms' been sealed like tut's tomb for a few weeks. Hopefully I can get back to that while all this is still fresh on the brain.

J     

[W1ATR]

Jared,
No centipedes here or very little.  But inundated with the black invaders, carpenter ants.  Went to war last week and carpet bombed the yard. I don't like using poisons either but it's either the poison or living with ants and I detest ants and insects in general.  So far they've been kept at bay and hope to have forced them over to my neighbors place instead.

Those or termites, I don't know which I hate more. We had to replace the sillplate on one corner of this house a couple years ago. Damn termites turned it into mush. We jacked her up with 3 40 ton bottles and the old sill just fell away like dust.

Possibly a result of the wet season so far, Jared. I get them up here as well, especially once the firewood was thrown into the basement. Seems a few would hitch a ride and be found wandering around the house.

They do eat a lot of other pest, doesn't do much to offset their 'creepy' factor though. The big 'uns found elsewhere can actually bite or sting and make you sick with their poison.

Drying the area out and removing rotted timber and compost usually helps, but they still have a way of appearing at the damnedest times, in the damnedest places.

Pretty much can't get away from the moisture around here. I have a little groundwater brook that runs behind my garage on the lowest part of the lot. That baby has been flaring up to 10 feet wide and 2 feet deep with all this crazy rain we've been having, otherwise it's usually just a trickle.

The bugsquitoes are already at it from the mild winter and they love that little brook.     

[k4kyv]

They do eat a lot of other pest, doesn't do much to offset their 'creepy' factor though. The big 'uns found elsewhere can actually bite or sting and make you sick with their poison.

I think the poisonous ones that sting or bite humans are only in the tropics.  The ones here are harmless, just creepy looking, kinda like earwigs and pill bugs.  I just ignore them, and would rather see them in the house than cockroaches or silverfish.

When I was a kid I used to pick up earwigs from under rocks on the playground to scare the girls.  I found a sadistic delight in trying to toss them down their blouse, even though I usually missed the mark, but it still had the desired effect.  Of course, if to-day's paranoiac conditions had prevailed then, it would probably have landed me in reform school or worse.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Of course, if to-day's paranoiac conditions had prevailed then, it would probably have landed me in reform school or worse.

Yes indeed, like the 5 yr old kindergarten boy charged with sexual harrassment in MD:

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/10573391/detail.html

Give him a stern talking to, swat on the bottom, or other age-appropriate deterrence. I couldn't even spell harassment then, or probably 'sex' either. Gotta love that new-age public education system.

But inundated with the black invaders, carpenter ants. 

When I moved into the current house in '94, it felt more like an ant sanctuary than a residence. The former owner had let the back forest grow up to a point that the trees were laying across the back of the house, forming a canopy that kept sunlight out and moisture in. More like a tropical rain forest in summer. As a result, the black carpenter ants were thriving. Rotted wood and moisture galore.

The first summer my dad and I thinned out enough trees to let the sun back in and dry out the back a bit. Within a week or two of opening it up, the ants vacated. I'd cleaned up all the sticks, old lumber, layers of rotting leaves and whatever else, removing the food source and allowing the ground and back wall of the house to dry out.

The little red pismire ants in the house were another matter. The former owner had rented rooms to college students, with the resulting mess of food particles calling the ants like the proverbial dinner bell. Once the place was scrubbed up and cleaned, even these little pitas left.

Unless you can divert the stream Jared, there's probably not much you can do at this point but wait. We've had plenty-o-rain this year, brooks and rivers up this way have risen to bankfull on a few occasions already. At least the centipedes do some good by eating other pesky bugs. But they do have a very high creep factor.

Just so long as they stay outta the radio gear.

[John K5PRO]

We have big 'uns here, a 5 inch centipede ran under our bed the other evening. The OL was screaming for me to come help, only one thing causes that yelp. I usually try to catch them in a trash can as smushing them against carpet doesn't stop them, only makes them mad and fast. They come out when its rainy season, and we have had a few sprinkles this month. The one that ran up under the waterbed, well it went into the frame, and so I had a hard time sleeping that night. However, it's been several days, so it probably died and is drying out. They do bite, BTW. Between them and the prolific black widows we have, there's plenty of things that hurt (also a few scorpions come through my QTH per decade). The 'pedes are the worst however, as they move fast and like to travel in darkness, under rocks, etc. 

I'd happily trade our big boys for yours out east...

[W1ATR]

lmao, John. You really wanna hear 'em scream. I got an idea a couple a years back from somewhere on the internet, or someplace, I don't remember. But, I found a nice pic of some giant hairy spider from the amazon and printed it out, then cut it out and stuck it to the wall halfway behind a hanging picture in our bedroom. She didn't notice it when she went to bed, but sometime early in the morning, like 4am, I hear aaaAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! at about 150db, even louder than my macaw can scream, and she can make your ears bleed.

Didn't get any rest, or anything else for that matter, for over a month after that little prank.

[k4kyv]

The little red pismire ants in the house were another matter.

Some words sound a lot worse than their real meaning. The splendid word pismire and its synonym piss-ant sound more dire than they are. Both words simply mean "wood-ant" though admittedly their first parts are from piss, "urine". Apparently wood-ant nests are not just smelly; they are quite specifically smelly. The mire in pismire is yet another English word for "ant". Its roots are very ancient and it is a distant relative of the Greek myrmex, "ant".

[Mike/W8BAC]

I lived in Folsom, California until my move to Michigan. The town of Folsom is built along the American River at the base of the Sierra's. Just under the topsoil is river rock tossed by the river and spread over square miles.

Each year as the temperatures rise an army of ants come up from the rock and swarm by the thousands. I found out the hard way to be careful.

The ants march by the thousands in a straight line to food. Say you left something in the sink like a spoon with food on it or something in the waist basket and went to work. The ants find a way in from say the wall socket in the living room and march up a wall, over the sealing and down to the food. It is an awesome sight.

I had a swarm in the sink one day and ran HOT water in the second sink, pushed the faucet over and scalded the suckers. A short moment later I was stunned by what I can only describe as tear gas rising from the sink that sent me running. The ants (I found out later) have a protection smell they give off. One or two ants crushed will stink. A thousand under hot water will ruin your day.

[KB2WIG]

you should use sugar in water and make some live ant art .... make 'em go in circles and march them into the toilet.....  klc

[w4bfs]

hmmmm ...sounds like ants give off formic acid ... same stuff in bee stings...neutz with base like baking soda or amnonia ...yuk

[k4kyv]

hmmmm ...sounds like ants give off formic acid ... same stuff in bee stings...neutz with base like baking soda or amnonia ...yuk

Formic acid?  Hmmm... I have been familiar with both terms nearly all my life, but had never made the connection before.  The French word for ant is fourmi.

Sometimes I put our cats' food bowl outside; I set the food bowl inside the plastic lid taken from a 5-gallon paint bucket, and pour water into the lid.  It will hold about 1/2" of water.  That keeps the ants from invading the food bowl.  The cats will not touch the food when it becomes infested with ants.