Silverfish in university halls - help please!

[nnnwnw]

DS is a first year in halls - ground floor room on the corner of a building.

He had mould problems after only being there about 10 days (tiny room, bed forced up against outside wall), but this was easily solved by using a dehumidifier. It's a good one and keeps the humidity well under control as shown on a digital readout, so no more mould.

But now, he has silverfish. I don't really know what to do. The main thing to eliminate is moisture to get control of silverfish, but the dehumidifier is already controlling moisture 24/7. He has an ensuite and now doesn't shower in there, uses gym shower to avoid the moisture/silverfish.

has anyone got any suggestions as to what can be done? The room is quite poorly ventilated - fire door always closed and window that only opens a bit because it's ground floor.

He doesn't particularly want the uni to come and spray something noxious because it literally is such a small room that he will be inhaling it all the time.

Has anyone dealt with this? It's so annoying as the room is ££££ and a really disgraceful standard. There are little gaps all around the skirting/fitted furniture and the building is maintained to the minimum possible standard. He has a lot of books and we don't want them eaten/infested. And don't want his clothing eaten either!

any suggestions welcome x

Just to add that the room is clean and tidy - no carpet or rugs either.

Apparently cellar spiders (those with the very long very spindly skinny legs) will predate on them and keep them away. And no chemicals needed.

A strongly worded complaint to the accomodation provider should elicit a new room for him.

Have the Uni been out to work out why it's so damp? It must be the walls or something rather than just humidity if you still have silverfish coming in. One of my Uni rooms had mushrooms growing on the wall due to a leaky gutter that no one had reported or repaired. It all got fixed and no more damp.

Failing that....diatomaceous earth is good getting rid of critters but harmless to us.

I liked my friendly silverfish at uni. Also if you get up for a wee in the middle of the night and turn the light on they all flee which makes you feel like a powerful villain from a 50s B movie. Tbf I only had them in the bathroom, not sure how I’d feel about them eating my books in my bedroom.

Bless him. Silverfish wouldn’t even have been noted as an issue when I was at uni. Too worried about whether the bulge in the ceiling would give way at last, the ice on the inside of the windows and what the funny smell was when we used the shower.

But, I understand things are different these days and you are paying the uni for this so really it is up to them to resolve. This means he has to let them know there’s an issue and get a plan for resolution, which doesn’t have to be fumigating.

My DD has silverfish in uni room too. You can get little traps on Amazon which work quite well. The Uni are not the slightest bit interested 🙄

Tell the uni. It sounds like a damp problem which could be from outside and not something you can fix yourself with a dehumidifier

Yes, and every university town has a handy shop selling them by the dozen.

It was an invasion of ants that got them under control in our downstairs bathroom. Not the ants themselves but the ton of powder that we chucked behind the bath panel. I think they were rather partial to the hardboard under our vinyl flooring. And DS1's discarded clothes.

@nnnwnw do the rooms not have to be a certain size for the students. bed, wardrobe, desk chair, drawers? I would be demanding another room without the extra silverfish

They come out of damp walls / cracked pipes. If he has an ensuite he can clean it a bit better and put bleach down the drains. That will get rid of them.

I used these in our house - put a couple of them down where I saw the most silverfish and they were gone in a month or two. That was a few years ago and I've only seen two silverfish since (we had a LOT before the bait traps).
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126756074428?chn=ps&_ul=GB&mkevt=1&mkcid=28&google_free_listing_action=view_item

And also encourage him complain, student halls are expensive nowadays and he should expect something sanitary for his money.

I quite like silverfish. I don’t think they do any harm.

They're no harm! Live and let live!

Silverfish are easy to kill. I smash them to smithereens with the sole of my slipper. Mop up the mess.

This is true but I think you would need a lot of cellar spiders :) . Also grey silverfish thrive at lower humudity. See which ones he has.

I have found that they can't climb up smooth furniture like the ikea kallax. So get the books on something like this. And get any furniture off the floor and on legs and store things in smooth plastic boxes not cardboard.

My DD has issues with silverfish at her accommodation too. We also got the traps and some spray. That's got the issue under control, she still sees the odd one but not as bad as it was.
Food attracts them too so tell him not to leave any lying around.
The spray we got wasn't that noxious, she'd spray it before going out so she wasn't breathing it in.
The problem is the people in charge of the accommodation just claim that it's not a problem in the building, only in the room. I doubt that's the case but can't prove it. Ideally they'd take responsibility and treat the whole building.

Going to Uni Hall or accommodation is character-building

I think they are harmless?.Do they make him uneasy? I do understand people can have phobias of things.

How many silverfish are we talking?.

My daughter had them in her uni accom last year. She grew to quite like them!

Silverfish are not a problem, harmless, but they do eat paper so that's worth noting - best way to cure moisture is an open window and curtains, sealed up and dark = damp and mould

To answer some of the questions:

They do make him uneasy, yes.

The accommodation is ridiculously expensive, I think just because it is 2025. Not because it is fancy accommodation (it's absolutely not).

He did tell them about the mould months ago. They wiped it and said to ventilate - absolutely no interest in looking at the outside of the building or installing a dehumidifier. I had to buy that and I've looked at the building myself and there's nothing obviously leaking/broken. They also sell those plastic containers of absorbent beads on campus, so they know very well that their accommodation is skanky. There's no way they'd give another room - I would say their rooms are completely full and if someone had left a room it would likely be due to a problem with the room or problematic flatmates. The uni seem to be responsive and come out to deal with stuff, but their solutions are bargain basement sticking plaster type things - like just wiping mould.

He hasn't seen a gigantic number of them - saw 5 one time, seen a couple today. But he is not happy about it.

The building is absolutely massive and it has definitely had silverfish infestations before, DS found out.

We've put an absolute crap load of bleach down the shower drain (it's a wet room, not a tray) and down the sink drain and down the toilet.

The issue is that the room is so small and that he spends so much time in there that we don't want anything that makes it stinking/unlivable for him.