So with this article I’m going to be discussing the connection between silverfishes, mold, and mildew.
Silverfishes eat mold and mildew and can survive on either as a primary source of nutrition, so even if you’ve been online, bought an eBook, etc learning about this technique and that technique to get rid of silverfishes, if you have a mold or mildew issue the silverfishes are likely to go nowhere fast. If you keep feeding silverfishes, how can you expect the infestation to stop?
I want to start with a distinction between mold and mildew. Mildew is usually a gray or white fungus that grows on walls, paper, leather, and other similar materials in damp conditions. In residential situations mold is usually in the form of “black mold” and is prevalent in A/C duct work. Anyway that’s my experience, the distinction between the two is really unimportant in the situation of silverfish control.
Let’s go over the basics of mold (and mildew) remediation, as you may recall a few years back there was a big black mold scare, and the insurance companies paid out millions, until it was ruled that black mold was inconsequential, and has no effect (medical that is) on homeowners, besides looking bad, well that’s not exactly true, it attracts silverfishes. You don’t need to call out professionals like the insurance companies were paying for, shelling out in excess of 5k to get rid of mold. Mold and mold spores in the air and A/C ducts can be killed thieves oil. To effectively use thieves oil to kill mold and mildew, you will need to buy what is called a disperser, they can be purchased online, I believe they are reasonably priced, but have not checked in some time. Put the thieves oil in the disperser, turn it on and leave the home for a 24 hour period, and your mold should be totally wiped out or significantly reduced.
If you have stains on your drywall, or spots of wet drywall, attention should be paid to those areas. If the currently drywall is wet, you either have a plumbing leak, or a roof leak, it really can’t be anything else, unless you’ve experienced flooding. Bottom line you’ll have to fix the plumbing or the rood leak, this is a double whammy, you’re proving them with water and food, very bad. An extremely important aspect of controlling silverfishes is cutting off their access to water. All wet drywall should be replaced or allowed to dry, once dry “KILLZ” should be applied, this is a product sold at your local hardware store, it acts as a mold and mildew preventative, to make sure you don’t run into the same issue in the future. If you have a leak again, say in a rough storm, and the drywall gets wet, you wont have to worry about mold growing on it again, wait for it to dry, paint over it, and you’re good to go. Mold and Mildew are by no means the only thing that silverfishes eat. That’s it for this article, for more information on silverfishes see the link at the bottom of this article.
