Silverfish!

[LouiseEH]

Posting here for traffic!

I have found a couple silverfish in my dirty washing (didn’t know what they were at the time and they ran under the machine before I could kill them) I put the clothes to wash on a 40 degree cycle and hung all the clothes up once dry.

My question is will they or their eggs survive the wash if there was any in there before I put it to wash? I found another one in the clean washing once I had finished putting it all away -.- (I left my washing basket on the floor in the kitchen so it could have crawled in afterwards)

I have looked through the clean washing and can’t see any signs but I just want to make sure I’m not going to end up with lots of them in all of mine and my DC clothing

TIA x

Yes, tiny trilobites ! I love wood lice too, little armadillos.
Surely it is better to have the odd innocuous little silverfish than a house full of toxic chemicals ?

^^ ToadOfSadness is right. you can buy it online. Silverfish eat paper, & you can make home made traps with shredded paper and diatomaceous earth. You can also use sheets of card with double sided carpet tape stuck down to trap them.

Not cute

Our janitor in uni halls used to tell us they ate the colours out of the lino 🤨

No advice, just sympathy. We currently live in hospital accommodation and they are all over the buildings. We've had our actual flat bug bombed 3 times and it reduced the population. Also reduced since the weather improved.

I'm mostly ok with them now but in January I lifted my tiny newborn off our bed where I'd been changing her and there was one right under her head. I burst into tears.

Wtf!
You utter freaks. Silverfish are horrible wriggly, insidious fuckers. All fast and disappear-y. Horrible and sneaky. They make a mess when you squish them too.

Give me a lovely spider any day 😍

Genuinely not intending to be goady here.

The bug killing chemicals are pretty nasty, in their manufacture, use and eventual dispersal into the wider environment. Not great for human or pet health in the house either. I am not being holier than thou btw. I have used them sparingly myself for clothes moth and carpet beetle problems in the past. But to use them against completely harmless things like the shy little silverfish does seem a bit OTT.

I live in an older house and see the odd silverfish around (maybe once a month). I know they won’t affect my life in any way and think they are just there getting on with their own tiny little lives so am happy to have them around. No big drama.

If you are truly phobic of all bugs, would you consider looking at the situation a different way? Could you turn it around and think of your disproportionate fear as the problem rather than the creatures themselves?

Imagine living free from your fear of bugs.
It could be totally possibly if you choose it and could make for a happier, more relaxed home life.

I understand that treatment for bug type phobias is quick, untraumatic and effective. Maybe it is something you would consider?

@liz70 my first thought was the band, and I did like their music.

Can't say anything about the insect, except I quite like them.

I just googled diatomaceous earth and I’m getting mixed results, some sites say it’s very dangerous and shouldn’t be inhaled and others say it’s safe

I’m so confused

@Laurel543 Diatomaceous earth is a type of sand that kills bugs on contact, its completely harmless to mammals.

@LouiseEH Its a kind of sharp sand, dont stick your head in the packet and inhale. But its non toxic.

They hate the light so you'll only catch glimpses of them if they have been put in a dark place and as soon as it goes light they will scuttle away and hide.

Leave your lights on and pretend you never saw it

I would love to get rid of my phobia of bug (spiders are the worst) but I don’t believe you can get treatment on the nhs and I cannot afford to pay for it myself :(

This is the first time I have truly lived by myself and I’m terrified for the time of year when spiders start coming inside!

It’s only in the kitchen i’ll need to use the diatomaceous earth (if they’re not in my clothes that I’ve just put away lol) so I could always keep my DC out of the kitchen for a few days just to be sure

I had a cat and that dramatically reduced any instances of isrcts / spiders in the house

But you could end up with a cat that likes to bring them in so you could end up with more, so not fool proof solution

I would do that, get out for the day, fog them and itl give you peace of mind.

I'm another member of #teamsilverfish.

We had them in the living room when I was a child, and I loved them! Very pretty wee creatures.

They are fascinating. Unchanged since prehistoric times.

We moved into a house infected with silver fish a few years ago. They're awful things and you have every right to be totally creeped out. That destro stuff does work but we got the best results by putting ant powder behind the kickboards in the kitchen and just leaving it there.

I see a couple of them occasionally at night in my bathroom, little mercurial drops. I just leave them be.

I’ve probably squished nearly 20 of them tonight!

I’m so on edge now, I keep thinking I can feel them on me :( definitely can’t sleep tonight and I’m leaving the lights on lol

We got nippon ant and crawling insect killer from homebase at the back door and around the edges of our cupboard floor. It's very good. We put some down before we went on holidays and came back to over 150 dead ones on the kitchen floor. It still works up to about a week later too. It says it isn't toxic to humans but I've kept my baby off the floor since as everything goes in her mouth.

They are hideous creepy little vile things. They like damp and paper especially. Diatomaceous earth is not harmful to anything worthwhile (kids, pets) but will kill them, not quickly but over time. Sprinkle it liberally into the crevices of your walls, under your bookcases, and make sure you air out your rooms. And hope that it kills them slowly and painfully.

You're right OP, they are disgusting. I save every single spider I find in my house and put it outside, same for most flying bugs. Silverfish deserve no such courtesy. They WILL eat your books.

If you have silverfish you probably have damp, that's what they like.