Our story in the house overrun by long-tailed silverfish, part 4
Here’s a brief recap for those who don’t know our starting situation in the fight against long-tailed silverfish. We bought a brand new house in October 2021 and it soon became clear that long-tailed silverfish have taken over our new house. This problem did not come up in any way in the house condition examination or in acquaintance visits with getting to know the apartment.
We did the first poisoning within a week of our move in October 2021, after this there were still a lot of larvae and quite vigorous and alive individuals.
The second poisoning was done in December of the same year and after this second time the situation got even better.
The third poisoning was done in January 2022 and after this it started to feel that we are now on the winning side and that the long-tailed silverfish are starting to be gone. How wrong we were…
Here are some good traps and poisons to get from Amazon:
The weeks before the poisoning Indeed, the third poisoning in January brought us a promise that you can get rid of long-tailed silverfish. We’re getting used to the idea that we don’t have to meet these guys anymore. The weeks went by and the larvae were no longer visible except for a few dead individuals. Until then, in March, 2 completely fresh and alive long-tailed silverfish were found under the sofa in the living room. In addition, I was walking across the study and there in the middle of the room one long-tailed silverfish was walking towards me in full force. Yes, we were a bit saddened that after such a long time that the problem still exists. At that point, approx. 5 months had passed since the first poisoning. We were still partially moving, some of our things were still in moving boxes. All that helped was contacting exterminator once again and ordering a fourth poisoning.
Poisoning time number 4
On this fourth poisoning, in addition to the poison to be sprayed, we asked for bait everywhere under the moldings of our house and in all the crevices that the pest control could ever find. I must say that the employee who happened to work for us was absolutely brilliant, friendly and understanding. Couldn’t ask for better service.
At home, we started to have such a mood in these poisoning protections that there wasn’t much cleaning left to do after the poisonings. Again, we used the thin and large protective plastic used when painting a car. The plastic is folded in a roll and when you cut a piece, it becomes a much bigger piece. It is convenient, light and can hide large quantities of goods. In all rooms, we moved things, furniture, etc. to the middle of the floor and covered it with plastic. We also covered all floor surfaces except for the edges. We covered the kitchen counters and tables, as well as the railings of the stairs and upstairs.
There is no need to do this protective operation before poisoning. The goods must be away from all edges, but you don’t have to cover all the places if you don’t want to. We wanted to do this because aerosols are inevitably released into the air from spraying, and although the substance is not dangerous for people or animals after it dries, we do not want to be in constant contact with poisons. We have small children and we especially don’t want to expose them unnecessarily.
We have taken the poisoning the last two times always on Fridays and those times we were going away for the weekend. This is also a precaution in a way and is by no means mandatory. You can enter the space after a few hours, but you have to carefully ventilate the places.
Our hopes are really high again after this fourth poisoning. If this was enough and it was already possible to move the rest of the items to their places. It has now been four weeks since the poisoning and the larvae have not yet been seen. Immediately after poisoning, 1 dead and 1 alive nymph was found on top of the protective plastic. We suspected that it had dripped from the ceiling and yes, long-tailed silverfish can also move on ceilings. Now all fingers and toes crossed that the problem is overcome.
We are already planning to do the Fifth poisoning, if the larvae still appear alive. We won’t give up!
Here are some good traps and poisons to get from Amazon: