A Silverfish bug infestation is one of the most difficult pest infestations to eliminate, perhaps second only to bed bugs. They are remarkably tough and resilient as a species, mainly due to their ability to hide, their long lifespans, and their prolific breeding habits. Small pests have been around for 300 million years, so we know they’re not easy to get rid of.
The number one mistake people make when trying to get rid of silverfish in their homes is simply killing them with poisons and traps without the necessary preparation. If you take this tact, you will almost certainly see them appear once again in force a few weeks later.
Silverfish can live up to 3 years, and during that period the females continue to lay eggs all the time. If you have silverfish in your home, you no doubt have dozens of eggs too, hiding in all the little nooks and crannies, under your refrigerator, or in cracks in the floorboards, in the laundry room. Behind your book shelves.
So if you go ahead and poison all the silverfish you can find, then you’re not dealing with the eggs, which will hatch in a couple of weeks.
And that’s not all. The critters are somehow getting into your house, so there’s nothing stopping more of them from getting in unless you do something about it. And they are entering your home for a reason: somehow you are offering them good living conditions and plenty of food.
So before you start laying out poison and traps, you simply need to deal with all these factors: the entrance, the food supply, the living conditions, and the eggs. Only then can you be sure that when you poison the existing ones you won’t have to do it again a month later.
The correct way to destroy a plague of silverfish
Now that we know how not to do that, let’s go into a little more detail on how to get rid of them.
The entrance could be a crack in the wall or the corner of a door. It’s usually a good idea to go through and fill all those cracks, including general cracks in the floorboards. This is also part of the removal of hospital living conditions.
Do some research on where you can find silverfish most often. They love warm, dark, moist areas near lots of food. So under the fridge or behind your kitchen cabinets, in the laundry room or pantry if you have one, in the bathroom, in the attic near the furnace, or in the basement. In addition to many other areas that may surprise you. You have to clean and dry things properly!
And of course silverfish love food, all kinds of food. Not just the starchy cereals and corns you find in your kitchen and food storage areas, but also the glue on your book bindings and even items on your clothes. So you need to carefully research what exactly these insects eat, and if you have a serious silverfish infestation, you may want to bag and remove all of the food before exterminating it.
You are now ready to kill them, so you can use a variety of methods to find out where the thickest silverfish hot spots are in your home, such as leaving certain traps out at night. And when choosing a poison, watch out for anything that’s too toxic, as some of them can be harmful to your pets, or even to children if they get hold of them.
Only by following all these preparatory steps can you finally get rid of these little unwanted visitors once and for all.
