Cellar corner
Damp fieldstone corners are where centipedes and earwigs settle
Both pests follow moisture, and an old Rhode Island cellar holds more of it than most homeowners realize.
The damp corner of the cellar
Go down the cellar stairs with a flashlight and walk the walls. Fieldstone foundations breathe, and the corner where the stone meets the slab is usually the coolest, dampest spot in the house. Look behind stored boxes, along the sill, under the stairs and around the little cellar windows. Centipedes like to hunt along those edges, and earwigs tuck themselves into any crack that stays wet and dark.
Outside, check the window wells. By late October they are packed with wet maple leaves, which is as good as a bed and breakfast for an earwig. Pull the leaves, look at what is moving underneath, and look at the mulch bed along the clapboard too. Earwigs are easy to spot once you know them: a brown insect about the length of a fingernail with a pair of pincers on the back end.
Centipedes are the quick, flat ones with a lot of legs that dart across the floor when you switch on the light. If you are finding either one in the cellar or climbing the bathroom wall, call Integrity Pest Control in Johnston at (401) 467-3344 and describe where. The family sets up an inspection.
Damp fieldstone cellar corner with a small window and a dehumidifier
Moisture is the cause
A centipede is a hunter. It is in your cellar because something smaller is down there to eat, and that smaller thing is there because the space is damp. Earwigs feed on rotting leaves and soft, decaying plant material, so a wet mulch bed against the foundation is a dinner table. Treat the water and you take away the reason for the whole chain.
Rhode Island gives them plenty to work with. A wet spring, a humid August, a downspout that dumps beside the foundation, soil that slopes toward the house instead of away from it, and a gutter packed with leaves will all push moisture into the stone. After a long rain, old walls can sweat for days.
That is why spraying a baseboard and walking away rarely settles it. If the cellar corner stays wet, the next ones simply move in. A good inspection looks outside at the grade and the gutters as much as it looks at the corner where you saw the centipede.
Dehumidify and seal
Two jobs do most of the work. First, dry the air. A dehumidifier running in the cellar from June through September, emptied or piped to a floor drain, pulls the dampness that these pests depend on. Move stored cardboard up onto shelves and into plastic bins so nothing sits on a wet slab.
Second, close the doors they use. Check the sill where the wood meets the stone, the gap around the cellar windows, the bulkhead door, and any pipe or cable that comes through the foundation. Pull mulch back a few inches from the clapboard, stack firewood away from the house, and keep gutters clear so the water goes where it should.
None of that takes a contractor, and all of it helps. When you are ready for someone to look the house over, call (401) 467-3344. Integrity Pest Control has been family owned and run in Johnston for over 30 years, and the cellar corner is a place the family knows well.
Family owned and run in Johnston for over 30 years. Call (401) 467-3344.
A damp cellar tends to bring company. See the full list on the pests we handle or send us a message about what you are seeing.