Keeping centipedes out of your home is easy to do.
I had a house that was remodeled with all new windows, sealed, and resided with cement board siding. All of this did not deture centipedes from crawling there way into my home. With a bunch a research and five minutes of time, I have managed to keep the basement centipede free. Total cost - about 5 cents a month. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. It is true centipedes like damp places. Experts are right, keep the basement as dry as possible with a dehumidifier. However this will not keep the critters out of the basement. It's not they poke their head in the basement and say "Ahhh this feels good I think I will hang out hear for a while."
Keeping the basement dry helps prevent them from creating homes in your basement or wanting to stay. Remember we want to keep them from not entering the basement in the first place.
2. Seal up all cracks and voids with caulk. Again, this is good advise for all insects, moisture, and cold air in the winter and humid air in the summer. Be sure to fix broken or worn out window seals.
This is an obvious piece of advise that you can find everywhere on the internet but, it needs to be stated to have a centipede free basement. The next step is the most important.
3. Centipedes like moisture, they like it so much that when they get into drain pipes it is the perfect environment for them. They craw all over in drain pipes. What I didn't know, is centipedes can crawl UP pipes. They can even craw through water! The very same water that is in the water trap in your sink.
Worse yet they can crawl strait up the floor drain in your basement.
Lets locate that floor drain in your basement.
4. Locating the floor drain in the basement is important. This is where most centipedes are entering your home. Most floor drains are near the hot water heater. Another clue is the basement concrete is gently slopped down towards a metal circular grate. If you don't know where the floor drain is, ask a friend or a neighbor.
5. Pour a splash of bleach into the grate. Centipedes hate bleach and will not crawl through it like they can do when there is just water in the drain.
Have a sink in the house that does not get used that often? This is a perfect place for centipedes to enter, also a perfect place for a splash of bleach.
Don't forget bar sinks, and a splash in all the sinks before going on vacation.
Worried about the bleach smell? The smell will stay for a few minutes. Because the bleach is sitting in the drain undisturbed the smell will stay low and in most cases stay in the drain. If you can smell the bleach the next day, it just means that too much was used.
Tags: floor drain, your basement, centipede free, drain pipes, drain your, drain your basement
