Millipedes are creepy and having them in your home can be a pain, especially as it gets cooler and damper out. Typically, millipedes prefer being outdoors. They’re helpful to flowers, plants, and gardens. They prefer living in damp soil. Have you ever lifted a wheelbarrow or bag of mulch that you left out for a few days? Chances are, the first things you’ll see enjoying the freshly exposed, damp soil underneath are millipedes.
Why do they come into the home if they like it outside so much? As it gets cooler, the soil becomes less hospitable. Furthermore, as we see more rain this season, the soil becomes too saturated for them to live in. Just as you seem worms seek out the sidewalk to keep from drowning, millipedes evacuate saturated soil as well. Millipedes are just more mobile. Why lay on the sidewalk when you can find basements that offer the best of both worlds?
Millipedes will often infiltrate basements in large numbers. A basement is cool without becoming inhospitable. It retains dampness in the air and environment without becoming flooded. There are walls to climb up, allowing millipedes to adjust their environment as it gets a little warmer toward the ceiling. And if they want it dryer and warmer still, they’ll be happy to crawl into your bathroom, laundry, kitchen…really any room that’s easily accessible.
A millipede infestation is addressed first with an inspection. Since millipedes are very mobile, a variety of strategies may be employed in eradicating them. It’s easy to chase them out only to see them return if their access itself isn’t addressed. Even if millipede removal is successful, the conditions that make your home appealing to them may simply attract more later on. A significant part of any millipede treatment involves identifying how they access your house and denying them easy entry.
Millipede removal may involve not just removing the millipedes, but changing certain environmental factors that draw them to the home in the first place. This may involve sealing cracks and gaps in windows and around doors, finding simple ways to reduce moisture in the home, and changing one or two habits in the garden. You’d be surprised how minor changes in landscaping can help you get rid of millipedes.
Moving rocks and hiding places and using less mulch close to the home are major factors in reducing millipede attraction. Millipede removal relies as much on millipede prevention as anything else. At Slug-A-Bug, we’ll address the problem in the home first. Sometimes physical removal is enough, and sometimes chemical solutions are necessitated. This depends on the extent of your infestation and the architecture and environment of your home.
To get rid of millipedes for good, we’ll also come up with an effective strategy for your property as well. Effective millipede removal relies on future prevention as well as eradication.