Full Record of the Midnight Centipede Incident
The scariest thing ever just happened at our house. On what should have been a lazy Friday night, I was fast asleep when, in the middle of the night, a centipede crawled up onto my neck and bit me. In the dark I had no idea what it was at first — I frantically flung it off, scrambled to switch on the light, and when I saw it my legs turned to jelly: it was a centipede big enough to soak in liquor. In that first moment of sheer shock, the centipede had already darted off somewhere out of sight. I was so scared I nearly fainted in tears, but I forced myself to stay calm — never mind the bite wound — and backed off to the bedroom doorway to keep watch on where it went. After all, if we didn't catch this thing, there was no sleeping in that room ever again. And that's when I captured the footage below…
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By eye it was a good 15 centimeters long… truly a horrifying sight. Since I no longer dared go near the room, I hurriedly fetched my dad, and in the small hours we started turning everything upside down — moving the wardrobe, the bed board, the clothes rack, the vanity table — hunting for this centipede that had vanished who-knows-where. We searched that tiny room for two hours and found nothing, so we had to take a break. All I could do was look up what to do online when a centipede shows up in your home and how on earth to find it. Our guess was that it had come in through the bathroom floor drain. Even though we couldn't find it, we reasoned that to force it out we should turn the room into an environment centipedes hate, so it would eventually crawl out on its own — so we cranked the dehumidifier to max and set the air conditioning to full blast. Then, once a friend arrived, they immediately spotted it curled up on some clothes. Even this friend, who claims to handle centipedes all the time, was stunned at the sight — they'd never seen one this big and didn't dare grab it directly. The approach: knock it to the floor, spray it like crazy with insecticide, then use a broom to sweep it — from a safe distance — onto a dustpan and toss it out of the house. Only then did the whole ordeal finally end.
Understanding Centipede Habits
Through this whole episode we were frantically researching centipedes online, desperately trying to figure out how to flush it out. Our theory: it had rained heavily outside for several days straight and temperatures were low, so the centipede likely crawled into the house through the drain pipes. Centipedes love warm, damp, dark places, so once inside, their favorite spot is to burrow into someone's bedding — and then climb onto a warm human body. After reading around online, it turns out quite a few people have had centipedes climb into their beds.
Other warm spots in a bedroom include clothes and piles of laundry, so if you can't find it, those are good places to check too.
What to Do If You Get Bitten by a Centipede?
A centipede bite plays out in one of two ways, depending on whether you're allergic to its venom. If you're not allergic, you'll generally be fine even if you do nothing. But if you show any allergic reaction, get medical help right away. Bottom line: after a bite, keep monitoring how your body feels so you can tell whether an allergic reaction is developing and whether you need to see a doctor.
Creating an Environment Centipedes Hate
Centipedes lack a waxy layer on their body wall, so they lose moisture easily — that's why they love damp environments. Simply running a dehumidifier already creates conditions centipedes dislike, and turning on the air conditioning makes it cold and dry, which to some degree reduces the odds of a centipede showing up in your room.
Centipedes Often Come in Pairs
According to what I found online, centipedes often show up in pairs — if you find one big centipede, a second one may be hiding somewhere, and you absolutely have to find it. We figure ours was a loner that snuck in after several days of heavy rain, and we haven't found a second one. But I've heard of people who killed one centipede, only to have lots of baby centipedes appear in the house a few days later… which sounds like the second one got away.
Takeaway: Finding a Centipede Is Harder Than Killing One
If you spot a centipede, keep your eyes glued to it — never, ever let it out of your sight — or you'll plunge yourself into utter despair, because every second it stays missing is another second of dread. If it really does disappear, my advice: run the dehumidifier at full power to drive the humidity as low as possible and crank the air conditioning to max. A centipede's activity level drops a lot in the cold — and centipedes are actually very fast runners — so slowing it down makes it much easier to find. Also keep the bedroom door shut so it can't escape to another room. There are plenty of ways to kill one; the most common is insecticide spray, or you can simply crush it. In the end, it took us five or six hours just to find this centipede, and at the lowest point we were in complete despair — I was ready to sleep at my parents' place that night. Thankfully we found it in the end and I could keep sleeping at home. But who knows how long it'll take for the psychological scars to fade..
