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We had a house centipede infestation when I lived in NYC. It was awesome. No bed bugs. No roaches except in the end of summer, (the giant flying variety and it
by weatherlight 3y ago
We had a house centipede infestation when I lived in NYC.
It was awesome. No bed bugs. No roaches except in the end of summer, (the giant flying variety and it was really just the month of August when the humidity is out of control they would come out of the drains.)
No bugs in general.
Those house centipedes ate everything.
- hotpotamus 3y agoI once awoke to see a large spider running away from me on my bed. I was a bit displeased with that until I learned that they hunt roaches. I figured if it was running away from me, then it figured (perhaps incorrectly) that I was not to be messed with and so the food chain in my house remained as it should be.
- prewett 3y agoI think it is always correct to run away from something 100 times bigger than you!
- greggsy 3y agoThey would be 1.7cm long if they were 100 time smaller than the average human. Seems to check out. I’m glad you weren’t referring to weight. The average human weighs 60-80kg, depending on what region you’re in. The heaviest spider is the Goliath, grows up to 13cm, but only weighs up to 135grams…
- mikub 3y agoYou mean the food chain remained intact as long as you're awake. ;)
- zem 3y agothe real danger is not the spider eating you but vice versa! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiders_Georg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiders_Georg
- RajT88 3y agoThey are creepy, but they eat baddies. The last time one showed up in our bathroom, my wife yelled at me to "Stop marveling at it!" It was the biggest one I had ever seen, close to 3 inches. RIP Uber-coleoptrata scutigera!
- weatherlight 3y agoyeah, the get big and move fast..
- kibwen 3y agoIf they're big it means they're eating well, so consider how many more bugs you'd be seeing if it hadn't already made a meal of them!
- thaumasiotes 3y agoIs that true? My first guess would have been that size more or less directly reflects age.
- wkat4242 3y agoThat's not how it works with other species like humans :)
- thaumasiotes 3y agoTrue, humans reach a maximum size and stop. But they won't get bigger if you feed them more. If they eat too much, they will deform, but they won't just enlarge proportionally.
- deebosong 3y agoThis is frickin hilarious. Your awe and wonder at it, your wife's repulsion, and your eulogy hahaha
- greggsy 3y agoI just googled the scutigera and they’re somewhat more adorable than the giant centipedes we have in Australia (no they’re not everywhere, but they’re enough to startle you).
- rssoconnor 3y agoWhen we moved into our house we were disturbed by the house centipedes. I did a quick search online about how to get rid of them, and I mostly found stories of the form "Help, I got rid of all my house centipedes and now my home is infested with other bugs! How do I get the house centipedes back?" So we let them be.
- hef19898 3y agoI had a bunch of hornets once. Great, because there were no flies mosquitos anywhere near the house all summer. Unfortunately, the moved out, the hornets, next summer...
- gopher_space 3y agoIn my neck of the woods it’s the same deal with spiders. You just escort them outside once they get fat and too lazy to not be on your wall in the daytime.
- fortran77 3y agoAn indoor spider might not survive outside. Leave it alone! https://www.livescience.com/55270-can-indoor-spiders-survive-outside.html https://www.livescience.com/55270-can-indoor-spiders-survive...
- gopher_space 3y agoThere's a spider size limit in this household and they get big enough that I'm not having them walk around unescorted. They go back to the woodpile their ancestors came from.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoI’ve had to kill a couple particularly nasty ones. In particular I’ve found a wolf spider in my living room and a black widow in my garage. If they have no danger to me, which is most of them, they are happy to continue coexisting with me and eating bugs in my house
- Modified3019 3y agoSame, had an old house in Michigan that would otherwise have been prone to filling up with orb-weaver type spiders if not for the centipedes. They’d also quickly vacuum up the wolf spiders that would try to invade whenever it rained. Apparently house centipedes can live for up to about 7 years, and need a few years to reach breeding age.