How to get rid of silverfish in an apartment forever with improvised means

Good day. Once I was visiting my old girlfriend, whom I had not seen for a long time.

I stayed with her for the night. I couldn’t sleep for a long time, but I also wanted to eat. I go out into the kitchen, turn on the light - and then silverfish scatter at different angles.

A friend is aware of such a neighborhood, but could not get them out. It was lucky that I knew the right way! Then she called me, thanked. Want to know how to get rid of silverfish in an apartment? What are the most effective methods? I will try to describe everything in detail for you.

How to get rid of silverfish in an apartment - the most effective methods

They took a bath and then suddenly a small insect with a large number of legs ran through the sink? Most likely, this is a silverfish - a famous “guest” in residential buildings and apartments.

What do insects look like and why do they start living in our apartments?

To know how to get rid of silverfish in an apartment forever, you first need to understand why they appeared. In the future, this will allow you to again prevent the invasion of such unpleasant guests. In general, silverfish is one of the most common insects in the human home.

A silverfish with its large number of legs can resemble a millipede, however, its body is more oblong, long antennae are located on both the front and back of the body.

The problem is that these insects come out exclusively at night, and finding them during the day is a great success. Insects prefer to eat starch, synthetics, paper, do not disdain the remnants of food left on the table.

A silverfish will not cause any harm to humans or animals, but there will be enough unpleasant sensations when it is found in the bathtub and in the kitchen to begin the fight against silverfish. Most often they live in rooms where the microclimate is very poor - there are always good conditions for various insects to live.

In addition, they enter the apartments through ventilation, cracks in the walls, through the windows. If you do not make good ventilation in the bathtub and do not regularly clean, silverfish will become your closest “neighbors”.

In the bathroom

Often, when they see silverfish, people turn to specialized companies that use toxic substances to destroy uninvited guests.

These include:

• copper sulfate;
• boric acid;
• any cleaner for chlorine baths;
• aerosol insect repellent.

It is also important to ensure the normal operation of two systems in the bathroom: ventilation and heating. Only in this case can we talk about the effectiveness of any ongoing activities.

The main measures for getting rid of insects:

You can also use boric acid in combination with chalk in a ratio of 1: 4. Just sprinkle with the mixture the places where insects can live. After 5 days, you can clean to get rid of dead insects.

How to get rid of silverfish in the bathroom folk methods? You can try to get rid of insects in other ways that have been known for decades - they were successfully used by our mothers and grandmothers.

The first option is the use of a glass trap, which is an ordinary jar wrapped in tape or paper.

Put the jar on the table, put a piece of apple or banana inside, leave the container overnight. In the morning you will find hordes of insects inside - the aroma of food will cause silverfish to pick up traps inside, but they will not be able to choose from it.

The second option is a newspaper trap. Such a trap will not require you much time and effort to prepare. Take an old newspaper, dampen it and spread it on the floor in the bathroom - in the morning on the surface of the newspaper there will be insects that love wet places.

Do not unfold the paper, but simply quickly put it in a bag, although, of course, it is better to burn it.

Now you know how best to deal with silverfish in the bathroom. It remains only to talk about preventive measures, without which any struggle would be meaningless.

Preventative measures

In order to no longer wonder how to remove silverfish, it is necessary to carry out all kinds of preventive measures. So, for example, once a week carefully clean in the bathroom, paying special attention to hard-to-reach places.

Naturally, the disadvantage of this method can be called the fact that you “chill” the apartment. Therefore, do not forget about personal safety - be sure to leave the house during airing. At a temperature of -10 degrees, both adults and eggs die.

And after airing, you just need to wipe everything, removing condensate residues that increase the humidity level in the room. Then sweep in the apartment, getting rid of insects.

Sugar shellfish

As we have already said, silverfish can also be found in the kitchen, choosing containers with cereals or starch for living. But most of all, these insects “respect” sugar and sugar-containing products.

Since we will carry out the main work in the kitchen, immediately delete from the list of possible chemicals all chemicals - they are not safe at all, because they can remain on food and then get into your body.

Insects instantly die at a temperature of + 30 degrees, so you can “dry” the air in the kitchen a little with the help of a heater.

Then treat all surfaces with a concentrated chlorine-containing solution, and after drying, with a solution of copper sulfate, which will finally kill insects.

Who are silverfish?

All kinds of insects can spoil a comfortable stay in your apartment. Few people will be pleased when, when entering the bathroom, you see a roach, an ant, or some other “living creature” running under your feet or on the wall.

This insect has the name "ordinary silverfish" or "sugar silverfish". The dimensions of the silverfish are small, its length is from 8 to 19 mm, has an oblong shape. It feeds on starch and sugar-containing substances, and therefore likes to settle in residential premises.

The sources of nutrition for silverfish can be glue (in bookbindings, under wallpaper, etc.), and even clothing, not only from cotton, linen and silk, but also from synthetic materials. The photo below shows how the silverfish looks.

It is worth noting that this type of insect is very hardy and fertile. Silverfish can be without food sources for up to 10 months, and the female can lay up to 70 eggs.

There is only one conclusion from the foregoing - we need to get rid of these very unpleasant "neighbors" as soon as possible. Otherwise, you can easily get spoiled clothes, books, unfit food.

Of the positive aspects, only one thing can be noted - insects are completely harmless to both humans and domestic animals. Silverfish does not bite and does not tolerate disease.

The reasons for the appearance in the home

To begin with, it's worth figuring out why a silverfish appeared in your apartment. The most trivial answer is that you brought them along with some things. Due to their small size and their speed, they easily make their way into any slots, falling into boxes, bags, etc.

Due to the increased humidity, the kitchen area is also “under the gun”. Bookcases, wall cavities, crevices, insulating materials are the favorite habitat of silverfish.

Trap

As already noted, this type of insect loves the dark, and therefore you are unlikely to notice silverfish in the daytime. First you need to find places in the apartment where the most common silverfish are found. This can be determined, both by their observations and by the traces that these insects leave behind.

So, having determined the alleged den of sugar or common silverfish, you should proceed to the installation of traps.

The traps are very simple: a liter glass jar is wrapped with electrical tape on the outside, and a bait is placed inside - a piece of bread or something else. At night, the silverfish will climb into the jar and will no longer be able to get out due to the slippery walls of the jar.

The next type of trap that you can think of in order to overcome silverfish is a newspaper trap.The bottom line is to wind the newspapers in a roll, tightly pulling the edges together with rubber bands. We soak the newspaper with water and leave it overnight. Silverfish perceive the find as an ideal habitat and bite into the newspaper.

A ready-made store trap can also help you get rid of silverfish. You can take any "sticky" trap, for example, for cockroaches. In any case, for greater effectiveness, you need to use the bait - a piece of bread or other starchy products.

Chemical destruction

If the installation of traps does not suit you, then you can use special chemicals to fight silverfish.

One of the most common means of removing insects is diatomite. Before bed, sprinkle it in places where you most often notice silverfish, and in the morning vacuum.

Another sufficiently effective tool to quickly get rid of annoying silverfish is boric acid.

Pyrethrin-based insecticidal aerosols help fight many insects, including silverfish. Do not use in food locations; keep away from children and animals.

The above means, it is necessary to process plinths, crevices and other places where accumulations of insects are observed.

Zest shavings can serve as a means of scaring away silverfish through the smell, but it is worth noting that there is no talk of insect death. It is not comfortable to keep the powdered powder in the apartment constantly, therefore this method is suitable only for rooms where the order is not so important, for example, a basement and a storage room.

And finally, the last remedy that will cause your bathroom to leave silverfish is a citrus smell. One only needs to buy a little lemon or lavender essential oil, dilute in water and spray those places where insects have been seen.

This method is best suited for closed boxes and small rarely used rooms - there the smell will not disappear for a long time and will save you from pests, and it will also be pleasant to please with freshness.

How to bring silverfish forever?

So that the silverfish does not start up in your apartment, you should follow a number of simple rules:

1. To control the humidity of rooms, damp, moist rooms and things to ventilate in time. Room drying is an ideal solution for removing silverfish.
2. The most effective fight against silverfish is the deprivation of its source of nutrition. One of the ways is to store the corresponding things and products in closed banks, bags. Old clothes should be stored in plastic bags, food in airtight containers, and paper bags and cardboard boxes should always be kept in dry places.
3. Be sure to putty all the cracks in the kitchen and bathroom that the silverfish can use to lay eggs.
4. Vacuuming an apartment is a good way to prevent the appearance of insects. A strong flow of air can rescue individuals even from small cracks.

How to eliminate pest indoors?

A variety of insects can disrupt a pleasant home experience. Moreover, if everyone knows about getting rid of mosquitoes in the summer, not everyone is informed about methods of fighting against such living creatures as silverfish.

What is it?

Externally, silverfish does not look the best. This is a nasty insect, at the sight of which you want to do only one thing - crush it with a slipper. However, this method of struggle is not particularly effective.

Not surprisingly, residential buildings and apartments are a favorite habitat of the pest. They eat wallpaper glue, clothes, even synthetic ones, book bindings and more.

They can have different lengths, from 8 to 20 millimeters. The shape is oblong, the antennae are located behind and in front. Alas, the living creatures are extremely prolific and hardy, because even if you bought a house or apartment where no one has lived for a long time, a silverfish can still live there.

Indeed, without food, the insect can survive 10 months, and one laying of eggs in a female includes up to 70 future silverfish.

So the conclusion can be made one and only correct - as soon as possible start the fight. Otherwise, they will fill your house, and then it will be possible to destroy insects only by the most radical methods.

Reasons for their appearance

To take certain actions, you first need to figure out why the silverfish appeared in your home. The reasons may be different:

• You bring a couple of individuals home from guests, from some public place;
• Small size, as well as high speed of movement makes silverfish difficult to notice. Therefore, they easily penetrate your bags, boxes, get home;
• Vent shafts are also a common reason why sugar shellfish becomes a permanent resident of your apartment;
• High humidity, cracks, poor insulation materials. All this is the main habitat and insect penetration methods.

Effective traps

To get rid of unwanted guests, identify their most active habitat. Take a look at black small lumps or small holes and yellow spots on fabrics or paper. All this suggests that insects are nearby.

Having found places where this unwanted guest of your house likes to walk, start setting traps.

Making a trap is very simple. You will need a can of 1 liter of glass, which is wrapped with electrical tape. The bait is placed inside, on which an insect pecks - bread, the same sugar, starch, or any other “bait”.

Climbing inside the can on the "sides" of electrical tape, they will not be able to get out again, since their paws will begin to slide along the bank.

There is another trap - from the newspaper. Wrap it in a roll, tighten the edges with rubber bands, soak it with water and leave it indoors for the night. So the silverfish will think that this is the perfect place to live and begin to bite the newspaper.

Another option is store traps for cockroaches. To attract a silverfish, place a piece of bread inside. Substances also have a detrimental effect on these creatures.

Chemicals

If the effectiveness of these traps is insufficient to get rid of a large number of pests, use chemical preparations.

Get rid of forever

Do not think that due to the rapid fertility of silverfish, you will not be able to get rid of it forever. To achieve the desired result, simply follow the simple rules.

1. Try to adhere to optimal humidity indicators, do not allow moisture, do not store wet items in the bathroom, periodically dry the room. A great tool is an electric heated towel rail.
2. Deprive insects of their food source. To do this, use special containers, containers, jars when storing food. Place old clothes in plastic bags; keep food inside paper bags and cardboard boxes.
3. If there are gaps in the walls in the kitchen or inside the bathroom, be sure to close them. Otherwise, the silverfish there will begin to lay its eggs.
4. Do not forget to periodically clean the room, vacuum, even if there is simply tile on the floor. From small cracks, air is able to “pull out” young silverfish.

As you can see, silverfish are not as scary as they are painted. You just need to take timely measures to combat, use various means, and not stop at only one method of destruction. What did not work in one house can effectively help another.

The most important thing is not to delay. At the first signs of the appearance of silverfish, proceed to their destruction.

How to effectively get rid of silverfish in a house or apartment?

It is not very nice to once discover that an uninvited tenant has a fairly unpleasant appearance in a house or apartment.

Such tenants can be silverfish - insects that lead a nocturnal lifestyle and very willingly settle in the human home. To decide how to get rid of silverfish, you need to get acquainted with its habits and distinctive features.

What is an uninvited guest?

This representative of the family of silverfish has a silver color. Her body is completely covered with tiny scales. In shape, it looks like an elongated triangle with three similarities of the tail at its apex and two antennae on the wide part.

It is not in vain called “sugar”, sweet is one of the preferred dishes of silverfish. She does not bite either pets or people, does not tolerate infection, but the feeling that insects eat food, books and household items in your absence is very unpleasant.

These intruders are also very prolific. For one clutch, a silverfish can lay about 70 eggs, and nothing will prevent young insects from growing and starting to multiply.

Favorite Habitats

It is unlikely that you can see silverfish in broad daylight, although they often sit under skirting boards and window sills. They like to settle where it is dark, humid and a lot of their favorite food, such as:

• paper, waste paper;
• rags;
• construction garbage;
• bulk food products (flour, sugar, starch).

This is a bathroom, pantry, cellar, warehouse, kitchen, home library. In the apartment, silverfish are together with building materials (wallpapers), old books and magazines, bulk food from a warehouse or store.

It is possible to find out that this insect appeared in the house by its excrement, similar to grains of black pepper, and the traces it leaves while eating in the apartment the stocks of its owners.

The products of their livelihoods are barely distinguishable, but they can easily be on the table, on kitchen utensils, in flour and sugar, on bread and other food products.

In addition, silverfish can lay their eggs directly in flour or other bulk products. It may not ruin their taste, but it is better to exclude this possibility.

Ways to fight

In order to exclude cohabitation with such unpleasant neighbors, radical measures must be taken. The control strategy consists of setting traps, chemical and mechanical methods.

The latter include frequent ventilation of wet rooms, thorough cleaning with a powerful vacuum cleaner of those places where silverfish can settle.

Do not leave food for them. This means that you need to store things and products in hermetically sealed containers - banks, bags, boxes, containers.

Trap

Setting traps, you need to be patient until the last uninvited guest falls into the bait.

Types of traps are very different.

1. A 1-liter jar wrapped on the outside with insulating tape with a piece of bread or sugar inside. It will not be possible to get out of it with insects that have got inside because of slippery walls.
2. A slightly damp newspaper twisted into a roll secured with an elastic band. At night, silverfish will conquer a new habitat, and in the morning it will remain to throw a trap along with them. You will have to repeat this technique several times until the last instance is caught.
3. A ready-made trap for cockroaches from a household goods store with a bait - a treat for silverfish (bread, a drop of thick jelly).

In addition to traps, you can use various drugs, many of which are easy to find at home.

Chemical methods of control

It will be useful to recall the observance of precautions when using control measures using various drugs.

So, what chemicals will help put out a silverfish?

It is advisable that these funds fall into the cracks, behind the baseboard, in the places of the alleged accumulation of insects.

So, in order to prevent silverfish from settling in the apartment, it is necessary not to create favorable conditions for them, to combat high humidity, and not to leave food in their reach. To eliminate insects, chemical control methods are used, traps are established.

How to permanently get rid of silverfish in the house

For human health, this insect is harmless because it does not bite.However, such a neighborhood will not seem pleasant to any housewife, because the silverfish is not only outwardly unpleasant - it can cause significant harm to things in the apartment.

Before proceeding directly to the process of destroying silverfish, we define its favorite habitats:

1. wet rooms;
2. clothes;
3. paper (books, magazines);
4. wallpaper;
5. cracks and crevices.

It is here that the insect is dirty: it sharpens book bindings, wallpapers, spoils things, devours sugar and flour. Even if you hide all food in an inaccessible place, it will find something to profit from. By the way, silverfish can do without food for up to 10 months.

Pest control methods

To get rid of such nastiness is not so simple. The most effective ways to fight are:

• glass traps;
• newspaper traps;
• repellents;
• disinfection.

First you need to try to catch all the insects using traps, and then carry out a complete disinfection of the room. Let's consider in order how to get rid of pests.

Newspaper trap. Fold the newspaper into a tube, moisten well with water. Put in the place where you most often see silverfish. You can place damp newspapers in several places. In the morning, collect traps and, without deploying, burn. Repeat the procedure for several nights in a row.

Store traps. Buy some appliances and put them in different places of the apartment. Use a piece of sugar or bread as bait.

Apartment disinfection

After the bulk of the insects managed to catch and destroy, carry out a general cleaning of the room. Focus on the bathroom and kitchen.

First, wash the walls and floor well with detergents, then treat them with water and bleach. Ventilate the room: the walls and floor should dry well.

How to prevent a return

To prevent pests from returning to your apartment, you need to follow these recommendations:

Instead of store appliances, you can use home remedies. Spread a zest of orange or lemon between the books. Put a few cinnamon sticks or cloves in the kitchen cabinet.

As you can see, getting rid of the pest is not so easy, it is easier to prevent it from appearing in your apartment. Clean the room regularly, ventilate, close all the cracks in time.

Has a silverfish appeared? We will tell you how to get rid

Small insects appeared in the house, and this is a very unpleasant surprise. Urgent need to think about how to get rid of silverfish. What kind of misfortune is this?

Small fast gray insects that can be seen only at night, usually they appear in damp places, are called silverfish. Love the humid environment in the room. They especially like to settle in the bathroom, behind baseboards, in kitchen cabinets, in crevices, in the openings of exhaust pipes.

They may appear in the room, behind the wallpaper. They feed on glue, starch, flour, sugar. In addition, paper, fabric and wallpaper can ruin. In nature they live under the stumps and foliage of the forest.

Silverfish are not dangerous to humans, but can spoil things in the room and food in the kitchen.Their appearance is unattractive, and they certainly do not have a place in residential premises. How to deal with them? How to get rid of silverfish seriously and for a long time. Let's figure it out.

Kinds

Silverfish are distinguished by the color of their shell, which is gray or brown. Young individuals are white.

Sugar silverfish (Lepisma saccharina) is an insect of small size, from 0.8 cm to 2 cm in length. There are no wings, the body is covered with scales. There are antennae and several setae at the back imitating a mustache. Thanks to them, silverfish move very quickly.

Home thermobia (Thermobia domestica) is one of the varieties of silverfish. It has a brown color, without a silver tint. Adults do not exceed 1.2 cm in length. They are less hygrophilous, their places of settlement are warmer.

For example, a kitchen, places for baking flour products, warehouses and attics. They feed on starchy foods, polysaccharides, and flour. Life expectancy of silverfish up to 5 years. The female lays up to 40 eggs per clutch.

Why do insects settle in the house?

At home, when they enter a favorable environment for themselves, silverfish can exist for a long time and multiply. Getting rid of these insects can be tricky. They like to settle in houses and apartments where people live.

From which it follows that finding their village will not be easy. An insect can get into a living room in several ways, here are the main ones:

How to eliminate the pest?

Having noticed the silverfish in the apartment or in the room, hurry to urgently take action. This insect breeds rapidly at home and is quite hardy. Do not expect when the number of individuals will be so large that they will settle in other parts of the house.

The ability to continue life, despite the lack of food for up to 10 months, is proof that the insects will not disappear on their own without action. We will be helped by methods to combat bristle tails:

• Jars with bait.
• Newspaper or cardboard as a trap.
• Chemical processing of premises.
• Processing the apartment with cold.

Jars with bait. To trap and get rid of insects, use an ordinary jar. At the bottom, put the bait in the form of sugar or bread. Wrap the outer part with electrical tape or construction tape for the smooth penetration of silverfish inside.

Place a trap for the night in a room where unwanted neighbors live. In the morning, all that remains is to get rid of the caught silverfish. For example, rinse with running water.

It must also be wet and left overnight. Insects will consider the traps to be a new place, suitable for housing and will remain inside.

Throw away or burn a newspaper or cardboard in the morning. These two methods are best spent several nights in a row until silverfish do not stop getting caught. This will mean that they have chosen a new habitat or hatched altogether.

Chemical treatment

For chemical processing, you will need:

Before processing the premises, it is worth removing all garbage, dust and unnecessary things. Thus, all inaccessible places will be cleared. Then flush all walls and floors with a chlorine-based product. Allow time to dry.

Remember that chemicals are harmful to human and domestic animals. Be careful. Ventilate the room after processing.

After that, spray all habitats with an insect spray and leave the room closed for several hours. During pest control, it is better to leave the house. Ventilate and sweep away the dead silverfish. For best results, repeat spray treatment.

Copper sulfate treatment: Apply a solution of copper sulfate on all surfaces. Dry with a heater. This will eliminate moisture.

If the farm has a powder of boric acid, you can add chalk 1: 4 to it and sprinkle it in hard to reach places.

Sprinkle this mixture under the bathtub, behind the baseboard, in the corners, in the places where insects can live. After a week, vacuum, removing powder and silverfish. Insects really dislike boric acid. Not immediately, but you will definitely see the result. He will make you happy.

Cold processing of an apartment

Silverfish do not like the cold. In winter, when it is cold outside - ventilation of the apartment, in particular, the bathroom, helps a lot. Open for a few hours all the doors and windows for ventilation.

If the room temperature is less than 10 degrees, the insects will die. This measure is more suitable for a summer house and a country house, but can also be applied in an apartment.

Tips

Performing a set of measures, achieving complete extermination of silverfish will be easier. If there are very few insects, several methods may suffice.
Repeat the measures in a month to destroy young individuals that have just hatched from eggs.

To disinfect at home, you must purchase one of the following:

1. A bath cleaner that contains chlorine.
2. Copper sulfate.
3. Special aerosols for the destruction of insects.

Insect Prevention

So that silverfish never appear in the house, you need to adhere to preventative measures:

Such measures will help to keep the house clean and protect from other insects, in addition to silverfish.