Centipedes are elongated, flattened arthropods with 15 pairs of legs-one pair per body segment. The house centipede has especially long legs and antennae, with the last pair of legs on adult females nearly twice the length of the body. The legs are banded light and dark, the body is tan with 3 longitudinal dark stripes. Newly hatched centipedes are rarely seen and have only 4 pairs of legs. The number of pairs increases with age.

Centipedes are predaceous on many different arthropods, including silverfish, carpet beetle larvae, cockroaches, and spiders. They prefer dark, damp areas for hiding and may be found in cement block walls, basements, floor drains, beneath concrete slabs and piles of damp cardboard, or in crawl spaces below structures.

House centipedes are common but not damaging for the most part. Although centipedes have poison glands and fangs, people are rarely bitten, and the consequence of a bite is minimal. People are most commonly revolted by the fast, darting movement of centipedes and the way they bolt out from under objects.