I have seen one of these in my life. I found it in my hair. I'm glad if already seen pictures of them on the Internet as the experience was already unpleasant enough when I could recognise what if found and knew it was harmless.
I've spent the last year or so trying to get myself to not jump out of my pants every time I see one of these things. Then roughly a month ago, I get up at 2am to take a piss, and as I'm opening the door this little fucker falls down no more than 10cm away from my face, lands right on my foot and would have probably run up my pyjamas if I hadn't managed to reflexively kick and launch it flying across the room. I think it must have been either sitting on top of the door or been trying to climb through the doorframe just as I opened it. Pretty sure I woke up everyone in the house, and probably the neighbors too.
Anyway, my phobia of these little shits is now 100 times worse than it was.
I got up one night around 1am to pee. I see maybe 3 or 4 of these little guys in my house each summer, so not very often, but enough that I am always on guard for them, so I turn on the bathroom light and put my feet on the bathmat, thinking it will offer some sort of centipede protection. I am halfway through peeing when one of those little devils apparates out of nowhere and runs full speed right at me. The bathmat does not slow it down at all.
I don't care what they eat. In my house, they are the worst pest.
Yeah so I'm not into feet either.
Fake, they're government surveillance robots /j
They eat cockroaches, termites, and bedbugs. They want nothing to do with me and stay out of my way. I bet they think I look creepy as hell too.
House centipedes are friends!
The centipedes have learned to draw. Not gonna fool me.
I call them eyelashes.
They are welcome in my home as long as they can find sustenance. My only rule is they are not permitted to shower with me.
they also hiss. which scared the crap out of me.
Wait...whaaat?
THEY WHAT?!?
As if they weren't already scary enough!
it's ok! its really just them saying "Please don't touch me =("
but it really is a bit jarring the first time you hear it.
Something so small can exhale air loud enough for us to hear it. Absolutely wild!
its actually stridulation! they rub their legs together to make a hissing noise (if I recall correctly). like a cricket kinda. but its a long hiss rather than a chirp.
That's even crazier! Insect violins, these creatures are.
Imagine them fancy opera singing!
Do they his in opera? I'd say imagine they're little jazz musicians going tsss-t-t-tsss-t-t
Fancy jazz centisexyleggy!
We call that "snake jazz", but it is widely known that many creatures (other than snakes) also practice that particular style of jazz
WTFFFFF
its called "Stridulation" and its something a lot of centipedes can do.
scared the crap out of me the first time I heard it when I was trying to put one in a cup and take it outside. lol
Tho a kinda fair wtf reaction to a giant magic glass dome suddenly chasing you.
you know? that's fair. but it also made me extremely nervous when I hadn't been moments before.
went from skittering around panicking to "I will mess you up >=( I'm dangerous! HISSSSS! LOOK HOW SCARY!"
but it also made me extremely nervous when I hadn't been moments before
For a sec I though you were making a joke and talking as the centipede (in first person).
the quote was meant to be from the centipede, yes.
I usually get these little dudes in the summer. I let them be when I can stomach it, but I have this one lamp at my desk pointed up at the wall to give me some indirect light. Occasionally a house centipede will crawl along in front of the light and cast a really long shadow to freak me the hell out.
Took a lot of getting used to when I moved to the East Coast for grad school. Supposedly they do live in my home state but I can't recall ever seeing one here. It's mostly spiders, millipedes, and earwigs where I'm from.
The thing that really freaked me out about centipedes is how absurdly fast they are. Also the one time I watched one crawling above me in bed and then it dropped onto my pillow what the fuck.
Time to burn your house down!
Nope.... Didn't work. I still hate them.
They are cool friendly predators, but my cat is a bigger one.
If they would wear pants...
OK, but which direction do the pants open: forwards or up?
Asking the real questions
They're really skittish and will run away when I'm around, and tend to stay on the walls. Chances are you won't ever touch them by accident.
So I'm fine sharing the house.
Also I never seen more than one at a time. It hardly feels like an invasion
When I was a kid there wasn't awareness of house centipedes. I remember my first time seeing one as a kid, it was night time and I was home alone. Some of the most visceral fear of my life.
That's honestly why they creep me out the most. Spiders will generally be chilling out in a corner somewhere you expect to see them, doing their own thing, and not moving much unless directly disturbed.
Most of my experiences with centipedes involves them darting out from under a baseboard at night and scaring the shit out of me when I'm only half awake. Then by the time I realize what it was, it's already scrambled across the floor to disappear under some other piece of furniture.
I just saw some this morning! the silly guy was in the middle of the aisle at work so I got him moving so he wouldnt get stepped on :3
That's a spider orgy.
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