I ususally take a can of hairspray, and spray them until all their appendages are stuck together. Then I smack the bejeezers out of them and then I get depressed and think about kharma... But I've never seen anything as gross as that HC! I will never visit the Americas again. Almost happy that winter is upon us soon. No more bugs...
At least you had bleach. I once had to spray starch a wasp (in my house) to death. It took a while. I developed a wondeful bug technique for when you don't have bug spray. Put a shoebox over the creature and then something heavy on top of that (Tom Wolfe novels work great).
AUGH! I sympathize completely - one of those appeared on my wall late one night... both cats ignored it, i was just in my underwear and felt like I was in a horror movie... I thought I killed it by smacking it with a box (didn't want that on my shoes) but couldn't find the corpse... convinced myself it was gone, eventually stopped shaking and sat back down to read... and then it CAME OUT FROM UNDER THE COUCH. Horrible. Ran off to bed, had nightmares and a panic attack over it, then got laughed at by co-workers the next day when I told them about this (Just cause I like to camp doesn't mean I want bugs in my living room!) Thankfully, I've never seen it again. (Oh, and I'm in upstate New York, they're everywhere.)
I can make you squirm even more. Picture it, a Saturday morning, sleeping in (oh, and I sleep nude). I was half awake, I rolled over, I felt something move across my back. I assumed it was my waist long hair. I'm lying on my stomach, something undulates up between me and the mattress, from my bellybutton to between my boobs. I didn't know I could jump that high. A great big (6 inches) yellowy-greeny, huge pointy fangy, many legged creature was in my waterbed. I slapped my pillow over it, to keep it from escaping and looked for something to kill it with. I beat it to death with the spine of a paperback novel (and it's hard to beat things to death on a waterbed!) and flicked it over the side. Then got up, had the oogies, took a shower and shook for the next 2 hours until the other half woke up. Oh yea, she slept through the whole thing, and it was a foot from her! Gah! I still can feel it between my boobs, and this happened about 10 years ago.
GAH - it's the freaky robo-bug from "The Matrix" !!!
Oh my GOD that thing is dee-sgusting.
aww now, that poor house centipede was just trying to take care of your roaches for ya....
Oh, man. We have those here in Toronto, too, and they're the skeeviest things ever.
I grew up in a house infested with them. They bear live young, and are extremely protective of them, and terrify the living fucking hell out of me, and one of them skitters across my living room every night at nine, even when I killed the one before. It's terrifying.
Good luck.
The powder that you want is BORAX. It's light blue, very fine, and comes in a big old plastic squeeze bottle at Home Depot for like $3.
Two things I didn't know about HOUSE CENTIPEDES, though: first, that they eat roaches, and second, that they are in California! I grew up in San Diego and lived for many years in San Francisco and never saw a single one of these. Then one day I moved to Chicago and they are seriously all over the damn place. Disgusting.
Good luck fighting them.
Hi,
Yes, a centipede. I was bitten by one and lived to tell the tale. It was in my crumpled up jeans on the floor, and when I threw them on, I wondered what was pinching at my knee. Seriously the creepiest experience of my life. Most of my experiences with them had been finding them in the shower, but this was just horrible. The skin went numb for a few days and I had a nasty little sore there for awhile, but that was it.
If I'm ever in a 1984 scenario where the government puts me in a cage with my greatest fear... it's gonna be piles of centipedes. My first encounter with one of those was when I was in eighth grade and one of them ran across my wall. The only convenient long-range weapon I had was silly string, which did not result in quite the zany death I'd hoped for. (Luckily, my dad clobbered it later in the bathroom, so I could sleep that night.)
I hope those things vacate your apartment soon, and thanks for the nightmares! 
You should go and check out this creepy website called "www.whatsthatbug.com" there are some freaky mother fucking bugs on there that will make your centipede look harmless. For real.
I think they tear up clothes a bit.
I had an apartment that was horribly infested with the creatures. They really like damp places; you can get a powder at the hardware store that eradicates them, though I can't remember what it's called.
Hate to disappoint you, but those are all over LA. I've had them in two different apartments. Call your landlord, they're usually on the hook for pest control, it'll at least get rid of 'em for a few months.
Only thing that kept them more permanently under control for me was getting a cat. He chases and/or eats them whenever he sees them, so they don't tend to show their ugly little faces in the light.
sara. i'm never coming over to your apartment again. i love you, but man. seriously. yeeeeeeeeeee.
I'm an entomologist...and I am also terrified of centipedes...they just are unnaturally fast and oh dear lord are those legs scary!
Heh, you got your answer, and I've never read you before, but I had to go on record saying that I had the EXACT same experience in my childhood home, but with a can of oven cleaner instead of bleach, which was the first thing I grabbed and it didn't work. I thought it was dead. It fell off the wall and it lay on the floor for 8 seconds, and when I went to investigate it RAN. How could it be impervious to foaming oven cleaner? I was creeped out the rest of the night. Regardless, they're not gonna bite you.
HOLY CRAP. If I ever see one of those I'm burning down my apartment.
It's a house centipede -- see "What's That Bug":
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/cent.html
They eat roaches and spiders and other nasties (though I agree, you can't get much more icky than the HC) and are harmless, except for the heart attacks and apoplexy, of course.
It's a house centipede -- see "What's That Bug":
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/cent.html
They eat roaches and spiders and other nasties (though I agree, you can't get much more icky than the HC) and are harmless, except for the heart attacks and apoplexy, of course.
I'm no expert, but I think that's a house centipede. They like to hang out in houses, eating spiders and scaring the shit out of people. They're creepy as fuck but ultimately harmless.
(Here from DHAK, by the way.)
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