If there are two things, silverfish love, it's warmth and moisture, and we've got those in spades here in Central Valley. That's why silverfish can be such a problem here. Our mild winters and humid and rainy weather don't provide much of a natural barrier to their reproduction. However, far from being a minor nuisance, silverfish can be pretty destructive. They're nowhere near as damaging as termites or rodents, but they must still be on your Central Valley pest control radar.
What Is This Little Silver Bug?
If you are looking at a small, shiny silver insect with a flat, oval-shaped body, two antennae, and three tail projections, congratulations, you have silverfish in your house. Silverfish are insects, but because their bodies taper towards the tail and have segmented scales, it's hard to tell that they have three body parts and six legs.
When looking at a silverfish, you might mistake it for a house centipede or even an unrolled roly-poly. However, silverfish are shiny, whereas house centipedes and roly-polies are duller. House centipedes and roly-polies also have many more legs than the six-legged silverfish.
How Dangerous Are Silverfish?
Silverfish in California can seem pretty benign compared to some of our more dangerous wildlife. And indeed, they're not dangerous to you or your pets. They can occasionally contaminate food stores but don't carry diseases like roaches. So, you don't have to worry about getting sick from them.
What a silverfish infestation can do is destroy your belongings. Silverfish eat starch, and when we say starch, we mean starch. It's not just the flour and cornmeal in your kitchen that silverfish will destroy. They might also eat the binding and pages of your favorite books, the threads in your favorite clothes, and even your wallpaper. Anything that contains starch of any kind can be silverfish food. In fact, a silverfish infestation can be so damaging to certain materials that many people mistake silverfish damage for clothes moth damage. A severe enough silverfish infestation can cost you a pretty penny and may destroy irreplaceable items.
How To Prevent And Get Rid Of Silverfish
As we said before, getting rid of silverfish in Central Valley is no easy task because there are few natural barriers to their reproduction. However, that doesn't mean you have to have a house full of silverfish. There are some measures you can take:
- Store pantry items in airtight containers.
- Vacuum seal or otherwise place fabrics that could attract silverfish in an inaccessible container for long-term storage.
- Keep books tightly packed on shelves so silverfish cannot access their pages.
- Fix moisture issues around your home, like plumbing leaks or condensation that could attract silverfish.
- Seal all potential entryways into your home, including cracks in the foundation and exterior walls.
- Ensure screens and weather stripping around doors and windows are well-fitted and don't have gaps or tears.
Combining making your home less attractive to silverfish and physically barring their entry can help keep them outside where they belong.
Professional Silverfish Control For Your Home
Don't bother with worthless silverfish sprays and useless sticky traps if you wind up with a silverfish infestation. These solutions are a band-aid at best and typically don't resolve the issue. For total home pest control, contact us here at Gideon Pest Control. We've got the tools and the techniques to make sure that we not only get rid of your existing silverfish infestation but keep them from returning.
Gideon Pest Control is a local family-owned company with many years of pest control experience. Contact us for a free estimate today.