We seem to have a insect problem, they seem to be silverfish. They are disgusting!! They seem to have habited the lounge, they only ever come out at night, if i get up in the night & turn the light on they are running around trying to hide under the rug. I keep killing them but they are disgusting. Wondering how to get rid of them. I dont know where they are coming from & i dont want to ruin the carpet with anything that might kill them. I vacumme very reguarly and sum days they seem to have reduced but they come back. Please help!!

I was cleaning the bathroom when I noticed there was one on top of the toothpaste bottle. I screamed. Perfectly normal reaction. I’m not afraid of bugs when I know they are coming, but I hate sudden surprises.
Second time, I was on my labtop in my room when it crawled across the floor. I didn’t scream but flinched. This one had to be over an inch long though.
Then the one terrifying experience. It was late one night and I couldn’t fall asleep. I was watching television when I felt something crawling up my leg. I get these feelings all the time and nothing is ever there so I ignored it. Later I felt it again and went to check it out when I felt a silverfish. Even worse. It was in my panties. I just threw it across the room as hard as I could. Now I’m afraid to fall asleep at night, thinking that’ll happen again. I’m just glad it only happens during the summer. And this has been the only year we have ever had silverfish. We’ve never noticed them before if they were even there at all.

I find Silverfish all the time in my cupboard and think they’re the tops. Me and my girlfriend found two but she’d never seen them before so was amazed. I said “it’s a silverfish” and she wanted to keep them as pets. So I said they eat silver so we put them in a takeaway container with a bit of a clothes peg but one died today.

We were sad but my friend Steve said it was weird but feed them breadcrumbs. We gave it breadcrumbs and put them back in the cupboard (in the container). We left the clothes peg bit in because we thought maybe they liked it by now, as a toy or something?

It’s nice to keep them as pets, especially in a rented house as we’re not supposed to have pets, but we do now.

I don’t know if they’re enjoying the breadcrumbs (i asked, but couldn’t hear if they replied). I left the dead one in the tub so the other could mourn.

Any thoughts on the above?

Thanks

I had never seen one before so I didn’t know what it was. I spent a lot of time researching it since I only had one sighting to go on and finally figured it out. There is another insect called a Firebrat which is very similar to Silverfish, but a little more brown. Firebrats have almost the same living conditions as Silverfish, but can withstand lower humidity and like higher temperatures. Other than that most of the following would apply to both-

Not to harmful to humans, but a nuisance.

Habitat: they like places that are warm and humid/damp/wet such as bathrooms, sinks, laundry rooms. They also prefer dark, low light places so they mostly are active during the night. Try to keep things like bathtub/shower stall clean and dry. A dehumidifier will help too or increasing airflow in your house with a fan.

Food Sources: they feed on starchy things, carbohydrates, etc. What this means is that they will feed on the starch in book bindings, paper/cardboard, wallpaper paste, clothing/cotton/silk, and LOVE dry starchy foods (like cereal, grains, etc). Make sure you keep dry cereal in airtight containers because they will lay eggs in it and you might just end up eating them. It wouldn’t hurt you and you probably would never know, but that’s just gross!

Reproduction: they lay eggs in crevices, cracks, and in food sources and it takes about 4-6 weeks from egg to adult. REGULAR (one a week at least) vacuuming around the baseboards, dusting of books and bookcases, cleaning out the cabinets etc will help get rid of the eggs so more don’t hatch.

How I did it:

Since I had a lot of books I also vacuumed the books (cover, around the pages and binding) and shelving frequently as I didn’t want them getting ruined. Since I have a dog who is inside during the day while I worked and went to school, I didn’t want him getting curious and eating any poison so I found natural home remedies.

Somewhere I read that cucumber skins are a deterrent – I couldn’t think of why, so I tested this by placing a silverfish in a jar with a cucumber peel to see what would happen. It didn’t really “deter” the thing – he just sat there. So I left it overnight with a lid on and a hole poked for air. Well the next morning he was dried up! Whatever compound is in the cucumber peel must suck up moisture or something.

So I put cucumber peels on all the shelves around my books hoping to kill/deter any adults or eggs. The peels took about 10 days to dry up and then I vacuumed well again and put another round of fresh peels around the books. I also sealed up my cereal (I did end up throwing a box away that looked like it had egg casings in it). I vacuumed by the floor boards more often and kept the bathroom drier by running the fan longer after I showered and taking a dry cloth and wiping down any condensation on the outside of the shower glass.

As I knew lavender is a good deterrent for scorpions and moths, I also put dried lavender and rosemary sprigs around here and there, then sprayed the baseboards with a simple mixture of lavender essential oil and rosemary “tea” (I would have used rosemary essential oil but didn’t have any at the time, so I seeped dried rosemary in water).

I saw one silverfish after the first round of “extermination” but none after that. I’ve read cloves work well too – so maybe add that your dried lavender/rosemary potpourri if you have a bad problem.

You may find other unwanted house pests disappear with the triple threat of lavender/rosemary/cloves and the great thing is that even if a baby ate it or put a dusty dried cucumber peel in his/her mouth while crawling around it’s not going to hurt them. And you’re not breathing chemicals either…so good luck!

When you see them blow lightly on them and watch them freak out and run around. Then suddenly it’s like they forget why they were running and calm down again.

Don’t hurt their antennae. If you break one they seem to just stay there and die because they can’t see any more.

I’ve fed them corn chips, honey, and other things. I even put a popcorn piece on the floor and they dig little holes in it. One night I went in the bathroom and the popcorn was moving. I got on the ground and looked and there was a silverfish laying on his back holding the popcorn chewing on it.

I’ve tried to make friends with them but they are always scared and can’t seem to recognize that I mean them no harm.

They really are fun to watch. They move around like fish and can make you laugh if you watch them. They do stuff that seems silly.

Yeah I’m weird but they are fun to watch.

please reply

victoria