Does Pest Control Deal With Silverfish Infestations?

Silverfish infestations are extremely rare. In fact, these bugs are easily one of the most harmless pests you’ll ever encounter. This is why very few people are concerned with these bugs say, compared to cockroaches. That being said, there are occasions where silverfish do become a problem.

What do we mean by silverfish infestations?

These pests feed on things like starches and anything containing protein. This includes things like grains and cereals. They will also eat anything that has sugar in it, and also fabrics and paper. This last point is important.  These pests are famous for eating books, magazines and other papers. If you have a large library, or important documents, then these pests can become a serious issue. For example, you might find this hard to believe, but silverfish are capable of eating entire books. This is especially true if you have books in long term storage.

Basically, if you’ve noticed holes in books, or papers, then there’s a good chance that you have silverfish. In this case, it’s best to call in pest control immediately. Getting rid of silverfish infestations is extremely difficult. They have the ability to squeeze themselves into the smallest cracks, and generally only come out at night. This makes tracking down and killing them tough. Yes, you can take measures like cleaning up your kitchen and doing spring cleaning, but this will have little effect.

What can you do about silverfish in your home?

Leaving the job to us is a lot easier and this can be done as part of a pest inspection. One of the ways that we get rid of these pests is with fumigation. Something else we can do is spray pesticides in the affected areas. This should help to destroy any pests that are hanging about. In addition to this, there are other methods that are far simpler.

One of these methods is heat treatments. This is a cutting edge and highly advanced method for getting rid of silverfish infestations. Instead of using pesticides, this method uses heat. The theory is basically that small insects – like silverfish – are extremely susceptible to high temperatures. When the heat rises to a high enough point, they simply die.

How this works in practice is that we bring a heat treatment machine into your home. You can basically think of this as a large type of heater. The machine gradually heats up the room until it reaches a certain temperature. We then leave the machine on for several hours, until all silverfish are dead. What’s also nice about this method is that it kills all of the eggs. This means that the pests do not simply return, once their eggs have hatched. Bottom line: heat treatments are the best way to deal with silverfish infestations.