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My spouse has been bitten by centipedes...but in the USVI, not in Hawai'i. It's incredibly painful.
Maybe it's too wet Hilo side to see them. Yet another reason to like living here.
When I lived in the USVI, a friend's cat was bitten on the throat by a big one and died nearly instantly. A terrible tragedy and my friend could do nothing to save the cat. A year later, her dog was bitten by one and swelled up like a balloon. Thankfully, baby Benadryl did the trick for doggie.
No, but that's just the cheap one from Home Depot that everyone on catchment uses. Personally i recommend a .5 micron ceramic filter in line after the 5 micron filter, which can turn contaminated ditch water into safe drinking water.
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Think I'm gonna drink beer instead.
Nothing wrong with that, but I find water is better for making coffee with.
I know people who have been here all their lives and have never seen one and then there's me who has been bitten twice. I'm from Kauai so that's where the bites happened. I'm not saying Kauai is full of them but the outer islands are known to have more country settings then Oahu. I've been on Oahu for a couple years and have only seen them in the country.
Once I was stepping out of my truck at night barefoot, and 7 months pregnant. The grass on my friend's yard was wet and thick and I stepped right on one. Another time I was bitten in bed in a condo complex in Kalaheo. Apparently it was already in the bed when I got in. It was resting at the foot of the bed in between the sheets. Wet and dry, but both dark environments.
My oldest son was bit when he was 2 years old. My son's screaming woke me in the middle of the night. He kept screaming and the screams just kept escalating. I took him to the ER. Come to find out upon examination he had been bitten in between the finger and thumb with the distinct hook marks visible. My son was observed for any late allergic reaction and we left. When I got home I inspected his bed and sure enough when I lifted the blanket there was a medium size one curled up and sleeping. I took the entire sheet and threw it out to the street. We were living in Poipu.
I once found one when I was living at the Sport's Villa. It was inside the rectangular box of where the cable line came into. It had gotten in as far as the box but couldn't get past the plate...it was huge and dead.
I had one crawl up my leg at the line of a kitchen's restaurant in Puhi while waiting to pick up food (I was a food server). While waiting for the chef to put the food up I felt a thread from my long skirt brushing my lower calf. I swept my leg with my hand and continued to wait but the thread kept bothering me so I lifted my skirt to look and it was if someone had put a huge fake long centipede on the inside of my leg from my ankle to a few inches from my knee. Now this all happened in micro seconds as I realized the legs were swirling against the backdrop of the knee length nylons I was wearing. I can't quite remember what happened next, but I'm told the scream was so blood curdling that they say the entire restaurant seemed to go into a time warp and temporarily freeze as the cashier witnessed me sweeping it off my leg with one fell swoop. I can't tell you the look on the faces of my special party I was serving of 20 ladies when I went back out...priceless.
My girlfriend was bitten when she got into her car and started driving and one was somehow behind the visor and as the car went forward the centipede fell from the visor catching her on the lip. Unfortunately she is one of those people that has a anaphylactic reaction from the bite. She drove herself right to the ER and when she arrived her face was swollen and she could barely breath as her throat was swollen as well. She now carries some kind of medicine in a syringe. Point being, the venom from the centipede effects people like bee stings...everyone reacts differently.
You asked if the house could be 100% centipede free; the answer is 99.9%. If you live in the country where there isn't much development and you have an extermination company spray once a month, that should take care of them along with the right kind of landscaping, screens, and calk. I've lived in country houses before where they've sprayed and it always worked. The fact is you won't know until you are in the house to evaluate the concern. There's always going to be something, somewhere...don't let a 500 million year old anthropod ruin your dreams.
Tyvin, thanks for the stories, and reality warnings, that even if you manage to seal your own house, you are still likely to come across centipedes in everyday life here.
Our one family bite came while someone was sleeping on a guest futon in Waimanalo on Oahu. But let me say up front, here on the Gold Coast of the Big Island, there are centipedes galore. I could go find one in my yard right now within 3 minutes by turning over a few lava rocks in my garden. I let them be, unless they come in to my house.
They aren't a problem if you have a new house that's well sealed. Even in the old 1930s house I first lived in on Maui, I didn't see any inside, only outside, and they were already did. When I moved to Kihei I saw ONE in the yard the first night I moved in, then ZERO more.
There are scary bugs everywhere. Sprinkle some diatomaceous earth or borax around your house
This billboard is in several locations in the US Virgin Islands. It always made me laugh to see such an elegant woman snuggling with such a horrid critter.
We used to have a lot of centipedes and then we got chickens. Chickens love to eat centipedes. It went from where we would see centipedes all the time to them being a rare occurrence.
I've been bit by them a couple of times, but I'm out in the yard a lot doing a lot of gardening. Hmm, come to think of it, most of the centipede bites have been inside. Once in the car at night one bit me on the foot. Ouch. Another was on my hand and in the house but it was a small centipede and not too painful. I've seen tons of them in the yard, but those haven't bit me, go figure.
Still, two bites in over thirty years, that's not too bad. Wherever else you choose will probably have some sort of biting creature. Alligators and rattlesnakes are much worse than centipedes.
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