Still having problems with garden centipedes

[alligator1]

I live in Michigan and most of my orchids became infested with garden centipedes when I purchased some orchids kept in a greenhouse/outside from a fellow orchidist. Unknown to me when I repotted them the eggs were still there. So I grow under lights and they sit inpots on clay aggregate in trays and the centipedes could crawl to the uninfested plants. So my other orchids got infested. I used malathion once outside in the summer like I was instructed by an Orchid Judge. Well they are back. I see some people use 409 and equal parts rubbing alcohol to control bugs. Could this be used inside the house (as it is cold in Michigan now) as a drench to kill these things?

[michael_exler]

i dont know how many plants u have, but a simple method is to submerge pot and orchid in a bucket of water.
this will get them to swim to the top where you can kill them one at a time and is very safe to do inside since there are no chemicals involved.
Any centipede that do not make it to the top will be drown.
If you have a lot of plants this may not be practical, but i have personaly found it very easy to purge the media of any un-welcome visitors before bringing the plants from one location to another and have less concern about cross-contamination of pests

[lambelkip]

409 is made for indoor use, so i don't see any reason you couldn't use it. garden centipedes will not harm your plants, since they only eat insects and spiders. the fact that you have centipedes is a sure sign that you already had a pest problem in those plants. treat the plants for bugs, then treat them again 3 days later, to kill any pests that might hatch from eggs.