Borax is the magic bullet. We got some “traps” that are really just sumpter syrup and borax. The ants are gone in a few days after that.
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There is some stuff you can get, that you mix in the water you give to your plants. It is a bacteria that kills the larva. It works great. Unfortunately I cannot remember what the stuff is called.
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Probably nematodes? They aren’t a bacteria but they’re almost imperceptible to the naked eye. They attack the eggs and larvae of the fungus gnats and they’re pretty damn effective, but they’re not cheap to buy and the times i used them they worked perfectly until a week or two later when all the gnats returned.
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Agreed, the Argentine ants here in San Diego come from outside, and are only really deterred by the spray that exterminators put down (LAMBDA-CYHALATHIRIN apparently). Killing them isn’t an option because they have multiple queens per nest who generate 60-100 new ants a day. They infest the canyons behind my house, so the best I can do is make sure no plants or cables create walkways onto my roof and then have the base of the house sprayed with the repellant.
Just remember: silverfish are normally a sign that you have a “wet problem” somewhere. So you might want to check where they come from and fix the leaking.
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Or you live near the the ocean. The humidity is never too high here, but it is almost always never completely dry either. (Unless the Santa Ana winds are blowing.) On the plus side we get house centipedes here. Supposedly, at least according to local lore, having house centipedes means that the inside humidity of one’s house is just right. They are most often found underneath houses, or inside if one is lucky. They are wicked quick. If you have never seen one move, I recommend watching a video. Finger length and speedy killers of all sorts of annoying invertebrates, including silverfish.
We have silverfish, as does everybody else in our area. I am super allergic to about half the Lamiaceae (sages, lavenders, mints, etc…), and lavender is on that list.
AAAAHHH! I did not know this was a thing!
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I’ve had good luck with diatomaceous earth. You have to sprinkle it on when the soil is dry though; it doesn’t work at all when damp.
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Came to read about Microsoft Silverfish.
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Learned a silverfish is a bug.
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Learned Microsoft Silverfish is actually Microsoft Silverlight.
edit: 4) Realized I had no idea what Microsoft Silverlight is.
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I have ants in my kitchen, too. I like having them around and sometimes talk to them. It’s nice to have someone in the house who’s just very purpose-driven. (Sometimes I leave like 3 grains of sugar for them in a corner as a treat; don’t tell my significant other though)
Ants, they’s good people.
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Yup. House centipedes and those brown house spiders. Don’t kill them, and all sorts of invertebrate pest issues won’t be an issue (well, at least if the “if you don’t kill the predators, then you don’t have a prey overpopulation issue” theory at work in my house is any proof [yup, anecdotal only…]).
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Could be; it was a thick grey slurry that you mix with water. I got some from a horticulturist acquaintance at the time, he said it was bacteria but I never saw the label, and he may have not known the difference.
It worked great for me, one and done, but who knows what other variables were at play…
Can you define ‘pests’?
It seems that you want to kill them because you just don’t like the look of them.
Silverfish don’t do anything to an average human home except share the space. Like spiders, centipedes, ants and wood lice, they’re not a problem to your home unless you have serious dampness and hygiene issues. They’re not predators, not especially disease spreading and they don’t leave annoying traces of their presence - like spiders do.
Moths, flies and termites on the other hand, those are pests.
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And eat paper, including books.
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Terro (which is Borax in a nice bait liquid) and diatomaceous earth are the two most natural lines of defense (along with caulking paths to/from the outside). Failing that, we’ve had good luck with Advion gel, but you could also use your local university’s ag extension to help you identify your ants and tell you what works in your region.
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Thereby eliminating books that are sick or old and ensuring that only the strong ones survive to perpetuate themselves.
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Did you outlaw them?
Don’t they chew holes into rugs and bath towels too?
A lot of people are freaked out by the way silverfish move, but I’ve always found it kind of fascinating. Spider movement is interesting too. It’s the herky-jerky housefly type movement that I viscerally dislike.
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From what it says from this here google search, it’s the glue in the binding that makes them eat books. They also eat cotton, linen, and silk. But they eschew polyester, just like any other sentient and semi-sentient creature.
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