Prevent Silverfish Infestations in the Home
Half-eaten pages in your books? Chewed-through boxes in your pantry? These are signs of a silverfish infestation. Here’s how to identify, get rid of, and prevent silverfish infestations in the home.
What Are Silverfish?
The is a slender, silvery insect pest found around the globe.
Silverfish are only considered a nuisance pest when they get into homes. There, they are difficult to control, but they are not harmful to humans or spread disease. Instead, silverfish are known for damaging material goods, such as books, wallpaper, photos, clothing, and dry foods in the kitchen pantry.
Silverfish are particularly attracted to under-sink areas in the bathroom or kitchen, where the environment is humid and dark. They may also live in walls, closets, or crawl spaces. They remain hidden during the day, but at night, they emerge to forage for food.
A similar insect pest, the , looks and behaves much like the silverfish. Both pests can be controlled using the same techniques.
Fun Fact: The latter half of the silverfish’s Latin name, saccharina, refers to the insect’s fondness for eating materials made of polysaccharides (complex carbohydrates), such as cellulose and starch, which are found in paper products, fabrics, and foods.
How to Identify a Silverfish Bug
Silverfish are slender, soft bodies, wingless insects with long carrot-shaped bodies approximately 1/2-inch in length.
They resemble a fish due to their shiny silver, scaly bodies that taper gradually to the rear. Their bodies have no obvious segmentation, and are easily identified by the two slender antennae stemming from their heads and the three tail-like appendages on their back-ends. They are smaller and thinner than cockroaches, and a different color than the similarly-sized earwig.
Silverfish have rather stubby legs, but don’t let that fool you. They are capable of moving very, very quickly, especially when startled. This is when most people see silverfish: when the pests’ late-night feasting is interrupted, and they scurry back to the dark corners of your home. Their rapid side-to-side movement resembles a swimming fish, which is said to be the source of their name.
Silverfish Insect Damage
Normally, silverfish live outdoors under rocks, bark, and leaf mold; they’ll also live in the nests of birds and ants.
In the home, silverfish are often found in bathtubs, sinks, or washbasins. Though silverfish usually stick to more humid places, they may also invade the kitchen pantry and target flour, cereals, and other grains.
Practically any material containing carbohydrates or proteins is susceptible to silverfish damage.
- Bookbinding glue and wallpaper paste are common targets. Often, silverfish won’t eat all the way through a material, in which case it will look like just a thin layer has been scraped off (see photo, below).
- Silverfish also feed on non-synthetic cloths, such as cotton or linen, evidenced by tiny, unconnected holes in the fabric.
Photo by Micha L. Rieser/Wikimedia Commons.
Christopher Burnett
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I have used cedar oil diluted with water in a spray bottle to get rid of silverfish. Great for getting in to walls or any gaps between baseboards and flooring.
I live in Florida. I had an infestation of silver fish, when someone brought me over a folding table to use that was full of them. I left the table in the garage. I had and always put out Ant traps through out my home and in the garage. They all died with the Ant traps. I also put Borax at each entrance to my home on the inside. Silverfish have an exoskeleton (hard outer shell). Borax kills any insect with an exoskeleton because the powder dries out and cracks their shell and they die. Borax also kills fleas, cockroaches, earwigs, etc.
I live in Florida and silverfish seem to thrive here. After reading your article and all if the comments, I can tell all of you that none of what you said works. I have tried all the remedies mentioned and the silverfish are still ruling and ruining my home. I too am a quilter with lots of fabric in the house. I do use bags the can be sealed and the air removed to store finished quilts. I put cedar blocks in the boxes where other quilts are stored. This works to some extent. After being in my home for six years, I have now gotten an infestation of large black spiders. They have been dying by shoe power. I will be spraying in interior of the house in just a bit to try to get rid if them. I am really at the end of my rope for all if the bugs here. Palmetto bugs my tush! Call them what they are, cockroaches. Rant over.
I know this sounds crazy, but after reading an article written by a world famous scientific about the predacious habits of earwigs, I've stopped killing them. Early one morning, turning on the bathroom light I discovered an earwig chowing down on a silverfish. We've had a heavy infestation of huge carpenter ants. We could even hear them chewing on our deck. I managed to capture an earwig and released it at the entrance to the ant's nest. Into the nest it went and out came a river of ants. We haven't had an ant problem since. No pesticides required.
"We recommend only using sticky traps that contain a pesticide in the glue, as this will prevent a trapped insect from suffering for too long needlessly."
Seriously?
Poisons shut down bio functions and cause death. DE looks like shards of glass under a microscope. On insects like fleas, cockroaches, and silverfish, DE works to puncture the body which then dehydrates the insect and the bug dies, eventually. None of this is likely painless for beings that actually feel pain. We only have to worry about being humane to animals that feel pain. Insects do not feel pain. Besides, insects are bugs. Step on them!
There are thick paper wrapped DE (diatomaceous earth) packets that are readily available on Ebay and probably in some hardware stores. They are approx 3x4 inches and you can just place them on bookshelves and in drawers or file cabinets. The silverfish are attracted to the paper and come in contact w/the DE which kills them. Since I have been using them the unnerving numbers of silverfish I've had in my home have been reduced to none. I believe Borax is actually DE. You could probably make your own by wrapping DE in wallpaper squares and gluing together. DE packets are effective and so much neater and easier to work with than glue traps. And as our resident retired Pharmacist mentioned, spiders in the home will help keep down bug populations.
I line all my clothes closets, linen cabinets etc. with cedar...works like a charm. works in drawers and boxes out in the garage. I usually put down some paper or tissue if I'm putting clothing on top of the cedar. I have no problem with the little buggers!
Does anyone have experience with protecting old books from silverfish? I use bay leaves right now. I am thinking that putting DE or cinnamon around the books could get messy.
You could try using cinnamon sticks. You could place them in a pretty bowl, basket, or tray with your bay leaves and/ or cloves (like a potpourri arrangement). I also wonder if a simmering potpourri pot would work?
Another type of Bay Leaves kills insects and that is laurel leaves. They look like bay and are a type of bay. They contain cyanide so don't put them where you can smell them or you'll get a sore throat. I used to collect bugs as a kid and used them in my killing jar.
