While millipedes do not bite and are generally considered to be a low-risk pest, a sudden swarm of these insects can lead to odors, stains, and other annoyances. Thankfully, most invasions end within a few days and with minimal control measures.
EditSteps
EditPhysical Removal and Exclusion
- Maintain your lawn. Dethatch and mow your lawn as often as necessary to keep the grass short and healthy. Long grass makes a good hiding place for millipedes.
- Long grass and areas with dense thatch can become very moist, so trimming your lawn can help dry the area out. Millipedes cannot live long in dry areas, so they will naturally migrate away from a dry lawn.
- When you water your lawn, do so in the morning instead of the evening. Millipedes become active at night, so the lawn has an opportunity to dry out before that time if you water it in the morning.[1]
- Eliminate or move hiding places. Piles of dead leaves or similar debris should be removed completely. Other hiding places that actually offer some benefit to your lawn, like mulch, should be arranged so that the organic matter does not rest too close to your home's foundation.
- Common hiding places include trash piles, rocks, boards, leaves, mulch, and compost.[2] As a general rule, if the debris serves no practical purpose, you are better off getting rid of it completely. If it does have some benefit, though, you should at least remove the material from around the perimeter of your home and further back in the yard.
- Eliminating decaying organic matter can also eliminate food sources for these pests, which will further discourage them away from your home.
- Make sure that any mulch you do lay is only 3 to 4 inches (7.6 to 10 cm) deep, at most, and at least 2 to 3 feet (60.96 to 91.44 cm) away from the foundation of your home.
- All shrubbery should be pruned in the spring so that air can circulate in between the plants, thereby creating drier conditions.
- Divert rain water away from the house. Check your rain gutters to make sure that they direct rain and other precipitation away from your home as much as possible.
- If you have a big problem with moisture and millipedes, use extended gutters to divert the rain water as far away from your house as possible.[3]
- Check for conditions around your house that could be causing moisture to pour into a cellar or basement. For example, if your house sits at the bottom of a hill, rain water may naturally flow back in. You will need to take extra steps to secure and waterproof your foundation if this is the case, and you may even need to call a basement professional to do the job right.
- On a similar note, you should also cap off any sprinkler heads that spray water near your home's foundation.
- Seal cracks or crevices leading into the home. Apply weather stripping to your doors and windows. If you notice any cracks in the foundation or walls of your home, repair them. Taking these measures will make it nearly impossible for millipedes to find their way inside.
- Doors and windows should fit tightly. If any do not, install weather stripping to fix the matter.
- Inspect the perimeter of your home for cracks and crevices. Fill these gaps with caulk to block the millipedes' passageway into your home.
- Check the weather stripping around your home at night. Use a flashlight and two people. One person should stand on the outside while the other stands inside. As one person shines a flashlight along the perimeter of the closed door and windows, the other looks for light leaks coming through to the other side. If you spot any light leaks, you need to redo your weather stripping.[4]
- Some millipedes can even crawl through vents. To prevent this from happening, install screens on the outside of each vent space.
- Sweep them away. If you do spot millipedes inside your home, you can usually get rid of them by simply sweeping them away with a broom or vacuum cleaner.
- For extremely large infestations, consider swapping out your standard vacuum cleaner for an industrial shop vac. Check with local hardware stores about renting a shop vac for temporary use so that you do not need to buy one.
- Remove moisture indoors. If millipedes are attracted to your house, you might have a problem with excess moisture. Use a dehumidifier to help draw this excess moisture out of the air and discourage the millipedes from staying as a result.
- Pay special attention to the subfloor crawl space and basement, if your house has these areas.[5] These spaces are usually among the most damp, so if millipedes are entering your home, it might be through these locations.
- Note that millipedes will not survive long in a dry home, even if they do find their way inside. Usually, these insects will not breed and will die within 24 hours after getting trapped inside as long as the conditions are not excessively moist.
- Both dehumidifiers and air conditioners can help draw moisture out of the air, but in really damp areas of the house, they may not be enough. In extremely wet conditions, even multiple dehumidifiers may not do the trick.
- To check on whether or not moisture is a big problem in your living space, place hydrometers in the most moist areas of the house. These are tools that measure the humidity in a given area. If the hydrometer indicates that a space has a humidity at 50 percent or higher, the area is damp enough to invite millipedes and allow them to thrive.
EditChemical Control
- Resort to pesticides only after trying other measures. If you do not make your yard and home as unwelcoming to millipedes as possible, chemical control will not help you much and will only offer temporary relief. On the other hand, if you have done all you can in terms of physical removal and exclusion and the problem still persists, chemical control can help you put an end to the infestation.
- Also note that many chemical pesticide powders do not work well when applied in moist areas, so removing moisture from the area is crucial to the effectiveness of the pesticide.
- Apply pesticide to the perimeter and to cracks and crevices. Use a residual pesticide around areas you suspect millipedes to gather in. When the pests cross over these insecticides, the chemicals get onto their feet and gradually kills them.
- If you have filled in all known cracks with caulk, then you only need to apply residual pesticides around the building's foundation and around all the doors and windows.
- Make sure that the pesticide you choose is known to be effective against millipedes. Active ingredients worth looking for include propoxur, cyfluthrin, pyrethrins, piperonyl butoxide, amorphous silica gel, deltamethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, hexa-hydroxyl, cypermethrin, and bifenthrin.
- Treat outdoor hiding places. If you know where the millipedes gather outside, you can mix an outdoor pesticide into the soil or debris there. The chemicals will eventually get inside the millipedes and poison them that way.
- Apply outdoor pesticides primarily to mulched flower beds and heavily thatched areas of turf.
- When treating outdoor areas like mulch, make sure that you use enough water to help the poison penetrate the ground cover. Alternatively, rake the ground cover back before applying the spray so that the chemical gets deep enough into the soil to find its way to spot the millipedes are gathering in.
- Make sure that the pesticide you choose is known to be effective against millipedes. Active ingredients worth looking for include propoxur, cyfluthrin, pyrethrins, piperonyl butoxide, amorphous silica gel, deltamethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, hexa-hydroxyl, cypermethrin, and bifenthrin.
- Use indoor contact sprays. If you cannot sweep or vacuum the millipedes when you see them, you could spray them with a contact spray, instead. Contact sprays kill quickly.
- Directly spray millipedes with contact spray on an on-sight basis.
- Make sure that the pesticide you choose is known to be effective against millipedes. Active ingredients worth looking for include propoxur, cyfluthrin, pyrethrins, piperonyl butoxide, amorphous silica gel, deltamethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, hexa-hydroxyl, cypermethrin, and bifenthrin.
- Consider contacting a professional. If the problem is really out of your control, call a pest control professional to take care of the matter for you. Professionals have access to chemicals that are more potent and more effective.
EditNatural Pesticides
- Spread diatomaceous earth.[6] Spread this natural product around known problem areas indoors, including all cracks and crevices leading to the outside and any spots with excessive moisture.
- When sold for pest control purposes, diatomaceous earth is often labeled as "DE" or "roach powder."
- This natural pest control product is made of fossilized diatoms, which are very small, very sharp granules. When a millipede or any other insect crosses over the DE, the insect gets pierced and cut all over, and these cuts eventually cause the bug to die from dehydration.
- Try dry boric acid. This product should be spread in the same manner as diatomaceous earth. Apply it to all problem areas, including cracks, crevices, and damp spots inside the home.
- Boric acid is also made of tiny granules that can cut and dehydrate millipedes. In addition to that, however, it is also a stomach poison, so it will kill the millipedes from the inside if it does not first kill them from the outside.
- Mix wood ash into the soil. For an outdoor treatment, mix a few handfuls of dry wood ash into the soil around your home, especially if this soil is fairly damp. The wood ash should help dry out the rest of the soil.
- Focus on soil and mulch around the foundation.
- Millipedes live in, thrive in, and lay their eggs in moist soil. If you dry the soil out well enough using wood ash, the insects will naturally find the area unappealing and stay away.
- You can make this treatment even more effective by disturbing the soil with a rake or hoe after applying the wood ash.
- Raise chickens. If you have the space, energy, time, and resources, consider raising chickens on your property. Chickens are a rather unconventional method of getting rid of millipedes, but they are a natural predator and can keep your millipede population under control for the duration of their lives.
- Chickens have a rather large appetite, so a few chickens can take care of most moderate infestations.
- Only consider this option if you are zoned to care for chickens, however, and if you know that you are ready for the responsibility of caring for chickens.
EditWarnings
- Follow the label instructions closely when using any pesticide, especially chemical pesticides. Wear a face mask to protect yourself from accidentally inhaling the poison as you apply it.
- Note that many non-chemical pesticides can still pose a health hazard to small kids and pets.
EditThings You'll Need
- Rake
- Garbage bags
- Extended rain gutter
- Caulk
- Weather stripping
- Broom
- Shop vac
- Dehumidifier
- Contact spray pesticides
- Residual pesticides
- Diatomaceous earth
- Boric acid
- Wood ash
EditSources and Citations
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