You should stop killing centipedes inside your home (hear us out)

Even the most innocent of bugs can get our skin crawling, so when we see a centipede in our homes, we enter into full panic mode. If you’re anything like us, your instinct is to immediately kill that centipede because who wants a creepy crawler in their house?! BUT, Rodale’s Organic Life has given us a pretty good reason to not kill the centipedes in our homes, and it’s worth reading about (we promise).

While we totally get that your instinct is not to save these unwanted beasts when they have invaded your home, Rodale’s makes a pretty good point about keeping these legged creatures around.

Rodale’s suggests not killing house centipedes because they eat cockroaches, silverfish, and termites.

The sight of a centipede definitely makes us queasy, but we don’t like those other pests either! And cockroaches, silverfish, and termites can actually cause damage to your home more than a centipede can.

Since house centipedes — which only have 30 feet rather than 100 — like cool, moist places, they are usually found in bathrooms and basements when inside. (You can also find them in your soil while gardening sometimes.) And though their legs are totally unnerving, you might bond over your common enemies as you approach them next time.

Orrrrrr NOT, after seeing them in action.

If you can’t stand the sight of them in your house (we more than get it), you could capture them and release them outside so that they can still be the badass predators they were born to be. And if you don’t have the stomach to get close enough to free them, we suggest enlisting the help of a family member, friend, or neighbor.

Because in the world of insects, we guess we’d rather a centipede than a cockroach.