Centipedes (Kapalua: Home Depot, garden, to move)

[NVplumber]

Looked all over trying to find one of the centepedes. Turned over old lumber,rocks etc. Never did find one but my employer on Kuau'i assures me I'll run across one eventually. Probably in my coveralls while I'm trying to sweat wet copper together. Had a LOT of run ins here in NV with scorpions. They are an arthropod and in the same family as centepedes. Painful and annoying but not deadly. Go bout an eight hour drive down south though and it's a different story. They got scorps down in SO NV and Arizona that will plant ya! We talked about this kind of stuff in another thread to. ya gotta learn to live with em'. Encouraging natural controls ( I'm thinking that birds would be the best for island life) helps a lot to keep the nasty crawlies down. Insecticides like raid and even malathion are COMPLETELY ineffective on arthropods. They can swim in the stuff and keep on truckin'. Iv'e seen scorpions live through being frozen solid and they can take being microwaved on high to. ( It's a NV thing lol). However they can be detered from hanging around. ( dryer sheets? never heard of that one) Our cats keep them paired down, and the birds munch them like candy. AND heres a lil' trick for ya'll ...Good ol' ammonia spritzed about your foudation edge and other entry points under the house will send them looking for greener pastures. It smells like urine...makes them think that something is around wanting to make a snack out of them.Bird droppings have the same effect. Sounds kinda gross but it works. If ya can't beat em' BS em'. Here our lizards and non-venomous snakes get treated like royalty in the summer months because they decimate the scorps , mice, and gophers. In the islands I'm thinkin' to get on good terms with the birds and the gekkos. ( As many chickens as there are on Kuau'i a poor centepede ain't got a prayer if he gets caught in the open). Aloha all.

[kani-lehua]

careful with all the chemicals. they all run-off into the streams and oceans. also, don't feed the birds over here. so many introduced birds and not enough native ones. lots on the endangered/threatened lists.

[Jungjohann]

yea, the birds thing is out of control, and I'm not talkin Hitchcock. Was sittin on my lanai up Nuuanu one evening, and a whole flock of green parrots go screechin past, heading for the trees by the graveyard and up by the golf course. They now have plenty parrots out towards Hookipa here on Maui, and Chinese Finches on the leeward side, plus the little green finches, that like to nest in the plumeria tree out in front of my place. I don't know what negative impact they have, but there is an Hawaiian Owl that goes flying by my place every evening like it's on the clock, kind of neat to watch it go flyin by.... If I could just get it into to my place to get this damned io'le...........And don't forget the bats!!!!!!!!!

Aloha and okolemaluna

[ashten]

i have heard that if you are to rub your body with dryer sheets, they repel mosquitos. so maybe something in them would keep centipedes away too? who knows.

[kani-lehua]

Originally Posted by ashten

i have heard that if you are to rub your body with dryer sheets, they repel mosquitos. so maybe something in them would keep centipedes away too? who knows.

what's up with dryer sheets? i heard that if you rub your body with them, it keeps bees away?!

[NVplumber]

I did not mean to imply in my earlier post that one should feed birds to attract them as a control measure. Lol it seems that the birds reqire no coaxing to make themselves at home anywhere and feeding any wild creature is counterproductive to them helping you by doing what comes natural.And the ammonia trick...forgot to mention that the dillution factor can be astronomical and it will still work. ( a 1% solution will do). The target crawlies "smell" at a level beyond our comprehension and a "spritz" here and there is sufficient. As to the dryer sheet trick...??? We've found large scorpions resting comfortably in them in our laundry room. The scorps are pretty adept at finding ways in as I'm sure are the centepedes. Close encounters ain't a matter of if they will happen despite our best efforts. Shake out yer boots and check yer bedroll is always a good practice. Aloha!

[kani-lehua]

don't let the bed bugs bite! bugs will be bugs.

[OHYEA]

Lambert, thanks for info! Also i hate centis.-_-

[Calico Salsa]

From Maui News -


WAILUKU - A centipede crawling into electrical equipment atop a power pole on Kanaloa Avenue on Thursday night caused a fire in the equipment and a breaker to trip off at the Maui Electric Co. substation on Lower Main Street near Hale Makua, said Kau'i Awai-Dickson, spokeswoman for the power company.


The tripped breaker shut off power for about eight minutes to areas of Wailuku and Kahului at around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, she said. MECO crews were able to restore power to affected areas by shifting the load to the Wai'inu Road substation.


On Friday morning, an undetermined problem with equipment at MECO's Wai'inu substation left pockets of residents in Wailuku and Kahului without power from around 10:30 a.m. to a few minutes before noon. The outage affected traffic signals in Wailuku and on Kaahumanu Avenue.
Awai-Dickson said the cause of that power outage was under investigation.

[Kapalua]

First I went to Oahu to visit my best penpal in Jan 1978, she never told me about Centipedes. Then a few weeks later I moved to Maui. I was never told about then. It was in 1991, moved to a new place, i had 2 house cats. I went into the living room and SEEN THIS AHHHHHH uGLY CREATURE on the floor, my one cat was ready to attack it, it was black and about 7 inches long! I didn't know what it was! I got the bucket of cat litter and put it on top thinking it would DIE. Nope! A friend later came to visit and said that is a CENTIPEDE and if you got stung it could KILL YOU from the reaction from the vernom, So the machete was used to KILL it. I learned that I had to use FLEA BUSTERS power ( used to kill fleas and bugs at all crevices when I had my door open while the screen door was attached and the other door. That is how the centipede got in. The next day, woke up there was one on the BED!!! No one ever told me about those INSECTS. Moved to another place, they can slip right through the scrrens and get into the house. LOTS were coming in the house. So this rental OHANA I had to seal the screens in and out, and I had 13 LONG WINDOWS to do. Then they NEVAH crawled in my house. with now 3 house cats I had to protect them . There was a stray chicken that wondered into the yard, I was feeding her, named her MISS CHICKEN, she was eating the cat food that I was feeding to a new cat. I heard that CENTIPEDES are one thing they like to eat! I dont know if that is true or not. I heard also they like to come out at night and crawl around. ................. They are also in the states, I seen some 3 inchers around this tree! I never knew we have them here, UGH! No one ever told me that also! They happen, I think so they are in every state of the USA, and I do not know how log they grow. I liked reading about bugs when I was a kid and not to many years ago, but did YOU KNOW.... there are all different types of CENTIPEDES... some have like "fur" on them, they are fast moving boogahs and I have to kill them, they are in the house crawling on the walls every so often! YIKES