If you spot a bug in your home with a soft, silvery scaly body that is wingless but has antennae, it’s likely a silverfish. When you live in a locale like Plano, silverfish are a common household pest.
Can silverfish hurt you? Thankfully, these insects are harmless to humans and are not dangerous. But silverfish can quickly multiply, which can be challenging to eliminate without professional help. Don’t delay. Contact All-Safe Pest & Termite for pest control in Plano when you frequently see silverfish around your property.
How To Identify A Silverfish
Silverfish have a creepy appearance and are a nuisance. So, what does a silverfish bug look like? Learn how to identify silverfish in your home. Look out for the following details:
- The insect is half an inch to one inch in length.
- Their body is soft, oval-shaped but flat, wingless, and usually a blue-gray, silvery color or brown-gray.
- Silverfish are attracted to humid environments. They like to hide in the back of furniture, in cupboards, bookcases, closets, and even behind wallpaper.
- These troublesome pests are usually active at night and can live for a year without food. They typically have a lifespan between two to eight years and can lay up to 60 eggs at a time when breeding.
If silverfish are taking over your home, you might discover silverfish damage in the form of chewed cardboard, books, molted skin, and yellow stains on paper and clothes. The silverfish likes to feed on glue, cereal, dried meat, oats, vegetables, and other insects. When these pests leave behind their peppercorn-looking droppings, which are often mistaken for dust particulates or shed scales, it may trigger an allergic reaction.
The Problems Silverfish Can Create In Your Home
Silverfish in Plano are far from innocent household pests. DIY silverfish sprays and pest control solutions may not be enough to eliminate and prevent a silverfish infestation. These insects feed on carbohydrates and sugars and are incredibly hardy.
Here are a few problems that silverfish cause for your property and family:
- Silverfish droppings and molted skin can trigger allergies.
- Silverfish can contaminate your food and damage carpets, insulation, wallpaper, starchy fabric, newspapers, and books.
- These pests can leave behind yellow stains on linen, books, photos, and clothing or even make holes.
It’s critical to control the humidity in your home, protect food sources so they aren’t easy for pests to access, and regularly clean and dust. Vacuuming carpets, cleaning out closets, and ensuring windows, baseboards, crevices, and cracks are sealed properly will also help.
How And Why Silverfish Find Their Way Into Your Home
Humidity and dry conditions make your Plano home an attractive hideout for the silverfish. Once they find their way inside your home, they quickly reproduce and can be very difficult to get rid of without the help of a professional pest control service.
So, what are silverfish attracted to in your home? Silverfish look for moist, dark, damp places to settle and find it easy to squeeze into cracks and crevices in search of food. Sometimes, silverfish were already hiding inside food for humans or pets, trapped inside the packaging. Other times, this tricky pest will lay its eggs in cracks between walls, gaps around windows, and in basements, bathrooms, or kitchens.
How To Get Rid Of Silverfish And Keep Them Out
It’s easy to underestimate how tough it is to get silverfish out of your house. DIY removal methods rarely prove effective, but you can take steps to prevent them. Remove clutter, and don’t make it easy for silverfish to get to moisture or food sources.
However, if you want a more effective way to get silverfish out of your Plano home, contact a pest control company like All-Safe Pest & Termite. As a local, family-owned business, All-Safe Pest & Termite understands the unique pest control problems residents face in Plano. Before it’s too late, call All-Safe Pest & Termite for a free estimate for silverfish removal and treatment services.