How to get rid of centipedes or millipedes?

Hi. I live in North Mississippi. This time of year our house is invaded by either centipedes or millipedes. I'm not sure which. These guys are about 1-in long. Any ideas on how to get rid of them?

 

Welcome to the forums.

I know they like the darkness and they love water.
Basements and crawlspaces are two common places to find them.

On edit:
I used those glue pads and fold up glue pad boxes near the wall.
They always got caught in there.

 

A friend had these in his house and he told me he sprayed for them. I would assume he went to a big box store to find such a product.

 

These are millipedes. Note the two pairs of legs per body segment; centipedes have one pair per body segment. Probably why centipedes are fast; millipedes are slow.

Here in the northeast it's common to see a few every spring/summer, but sometimes a gross overpopulation occurs and we can literally sweep up shovelfuls of them.

They are hard to control chemically when they are this bad as they come from deeper in the ground; underneath the basement/floor slab. Oftentimes they die slowly from drying out as quickly as they would die from walking across an insecticide barrier inside the house.

If living on a slab built house, they are either coming from under the slab by crawling in from outside and into the walls or from expansion joints/cracks in the slab underneath the house, or both.

Not much can be done if they are coming in inaccessible joints/cracks but if they are coming in from the exterior perimeter and climbing up and inside the exterior walls there are things to try.

Sometimes there is a slight gap where the ground meets the house into which I'd pour/sprinkle/layer insecticide granules. Water based sprays would work too, but the granules will last longer. If I don't feel like I'm getting enough into the gaps, if any, I'd scratch out a slight trench along ext perimeter and layer granules into that and re-cover. The scratched trench will keep the granules in place and concentrate the insecticide where it will do the most good. The ambient moisture will slowly dissolve the granules over time. Any of the granules labeled from crawling insects should be good for this. Then you could hand scatter/spread granules overtop of the soil perimeter going out a couple feet or so.

Millipedes are usually not as successfully controlled as are the more typical crawling insects because of where they live prior to entering out houses. Do what you can but don't get your hopes to high.