Are silverfish eating your books or wallpaper from the inside out? Let our experienced technicians at Imperial Pest Control help you get rid of them for good.
Silverfish look like they sound – they are tiny, carrot shaped insects covered in metallic, silver-gray scales and measure between ½" and ¾" in size. They have long, delicate wavering antennae and most silverfish species are usually found living beneath the bark of trees or in animal nests.
However, a few species prefer to live in human habitations, and can often be found behind loose strips of wallpaper where they can live in the dark, warm and protected, and feed off the starchy paste and paper that makes up their high carbohydrate and protein-based diet.
If left undiscovered, silverfish can cause extensive damage to books and book bindings, paper products in general, textiles, artificial silk, cereals, dried meat products, glues and other materials of plant origin. Once they hatch, silverfish will pass through several moults before they reach full adult status, which can take up to three years. They are unusually long-lived insects, and can survive as full grown adults for around three years in areas where they are undisturbed and have a constant supply of starchy food material.
Adult female silverfish lay clutches of 5 to 50 eggs at a time, but breeding grounds are notoriously difficult to find. This is why controlling silverfish infestations is usually best left to commercial pest control companies such as Imperial Pest Control. We have expert, trained technicians who know where to look and how to apply chemical pesticide treatments to successfully eliminate the problem.
As with all of our treatments, once we have exterminated your initial silverfish infestation, we will be able to suggest steps you can take to avoid future silverfish encounters, such as fixing loose wallpaper.
