You’re half-awake, toothbrush foaming, when a sliver of moonlight suddenly wriggles across the tiles. It moves like liquid mercury, fast and fishy, and before you can spit, it’s gone. Congratulations—you’ve met a silverfish, a tiny dinosaur that’s been scuttling since T-Rex times and has now chosen your bathroom as its all-inclusive resort. Shiny, wingless, and shaped like a carrot that’s been to the gym, it’s not here to bite you or spread plague; it wants the stuff you forgot you owned: the glue behind last year’s wallpaper, the starch in your college diploma, the crumbs of bedtime crackers you dropped behind the headboard.
One silverfish is a novelty; three is a memo from the universe that your house is too humid, too dark, and too delicious. They reproduce like gossip—quietly and everywhere—so that single ghost you saw at 2 a.m. is already plotting a family reunion inside your cereal box. Check for yellow stains on old love letters, tiny pepper-like droppings in corners, or wallpaper edges that look like something’s been nibbling with pinking shears. If any of these clues show up alongside that sliver-of-moon wriggle, you’ve got roommates.
Start by betraying their love language: dry everything out. Run a dehumidifier in the basement until the air feels like crackers. Seal cereal in glass, pasta in plastic, and that stack of delivery pizza boxes in…the recycling bin outside. Caulk the crack between baseboard and wall, the gap around pipes, any opening wider than a credit card. Sprinkle food-grade diatomaceous earth along those new borders; to a silverfish it’s broken glass under bare feet. Add a drop of lavender or cedar oil if you want the room to smell like a spa that quietly assassinates bugs.
When you’re tired of playing defense, set the oldest trap in the book: a tall jar wrapped with masking tape so the insects can climb in, a crust of bread at the bottom so they’ll fall and can’t scale the slick glass walls. You’ll wake to a tiny aquarium of glittering prisoners you can dump outside or, if you’re feeling merciful, relocate to the compost where the humidity belongs. If the jar fills faster than you can empty it, call the pros; they’ve got sprays that dry clear and reach into places your vacuum hose can’t flex.
Keep them gone by living like you’re allergic to damp: no wet towels on floors, no cardboard caches under beds, no piles of “maybe one day” clothes that never see daylight. Think of your house as a desert campsite—everything sealed, elevated, dry. Do that, and the only silver you’ll see is the edge of the moon safely outside the window, not wriggling across your floor while you brush your teeth.
