How to Get Rid of Millipedes in Your House

Dealing with a millipede infestation in your home? Learn about their characteristics, common hiding places, effective removal methods, and how to prevent future occurrences.

Common Characteristics of Millipedes

You’ve spotted a creepy crawler that looks like a worm with legs, now what? Is it a centipede or a millipede? Here are a few characteristics to help identify millipedes, or more also commonly known as a thousand-leggers.

• Millipedes are mostly active at night and found in damp places throughout the United States.

• The most Common species of millipedes are usually brown or black in color, but there are also some species that are orange or red.

• Millipedes are usually 1 to 2 inches long with worm-like bodies that are divided into many segments, each containing two pairs of legs.

• While their name means "thousand legs", this arthropod doesn't actually have that many; between 80-400 is typical.

• When they walk, their legs appear to move in a wave-like motion, and they will curl up into a small coil when resting or disturbed.

Where Do Millipedes Like to Hide?

Outdoors: Millipedes like to hide in damp, dark places.

Under mulch
Leaf piles
Compost piles
Flowerpots
Woodpiles
Flower pots
Wood piles
Under stones
Plant debris

Indoors: Millipedes are attracted to cool, damp places

Basements
Crawl Spaces
Garages

A coiled millipede on a white background

What Do Millipedes Eat?

Millipedes are decomposers and are beneficial to have around your yard. Similar to earthworms, millipedes eat damp, decaying plant material such as leaves and flowers. During periods of drought, millipedes have been known to feed on living plants where they get needed moisture from the leaves and roots.

How Can I Get Rid of Millipedes?

Wait Them Out

When millipedes make their way inside your house, they stick around because they don't know how to get back out. If you find millipedes in your house, you can consider waiting them out. Millipedes can only survive a few days in the dry environment found in most homes, so any infestation is likely to be short-lived. You can also sweep them up with a broom or vacuum or you can pick up these benign creatures by hand.

Create a Bug Barrier

If you're not willing to wait them out, another option is to use with Ortho® Home Defense® Insect Killer for Indoor & Perimeter. This products helps to create a barrier against future millipedes and other bugs by spraying along the bottom of exterior doors, entrances to crawl spaces, vents and utility openings in the foundation wall, where the siding meets the foundation block, along the outside perimeter of your home, and along the interior walls of crawl spaces and basements. For millipede problems in your yard, use Ortho® Home Defense® Insect Killer for Lawn & Landscape instead.

How Can I Prevent Millipedes?

To prevent future millipede infestations in your home, do the following:

• Remove their hiding places. Don't pile mulch against the foundation, and remove leaves, grass clippings, woodpiles, and stones from around the outside of your home.

• Make sure your foundation, basement, and crawl spaces are dry by using dehumidifiers or sump pumps, if needed.

• Keep gutters and downspouts clear of leaves and in good working order to help keep water away from your foundation.

• Repair leaky faucets, water pipes, and air conditioning units.

• Avoid overwatering your lawn and dethatch if needed. (Millipedes will also live in the thick, moist thatch layer of a poorly maintained lawn.)

• Seal and caulk cracks and other openings in your foundation wall, and apply door sweeps to exterior doors.