Silver fish. Damn things! How to get rid of them..? I am came from close to equator, never seen this fishes. But in Norway, seems like it’s epidemic. Especially in older houses and in bathrooms.

32 comments

  1. Well, there is a secret way to get rid of these small critters.

    And I just discovered it this summer as I got a ant infestastion in my house, where these ants stayed as long as these where in my house and left when I had no more left in my house.

    So after that I have not sees one silver fish in my house.

    I dont know if this helps, but It worked for me.

  2. Regular vacuming removes both the critters and their food source. Don’t wash so much with water as they love a damp environment. Consider opening your air vents more to remove any moisture.

  5. First I used traps, catched a lot of them but didn’t really help. Then I bought industrial grade ozone generator and they all died after first treatment along with every mold and other live things in my apartment.

  6. Permetrin is what we used. Kills most things and doesn’t smell. Wood tox is one brand i used to great effect.

  7. Kind of bad advices for you in here.

    1. Find out if you have long tailed or regular silverfish.
    (Google skjeggkre vs sølvkre which is the norgwegian terms) the one in the picrute is skjeggkre, not sølvkre.

    2. If it’s sølvkre (regular silverfish, which is smaller, silver-like), it’s because you have a moist/damp environment. It’s not necessarily because of water damage.

    3. If it’s skjeggkre, as in the picture (bigger, up to 2cm plus antennas, more of a grey color) it’s more complex.
    These are very hard to get rid of, as they can live for months without food, and can handle a lot of chemicals, heat, and cold, moisture, drought.
    (I’ve seen them voluntarily walk outside in below freezing temps, didn’t stay there for long tho I guess)

    We got a offer for 70 000kr offer to get rid of it, and even then there was no guarantee they would stay away for long.
    As you said, it’s getting very common.

    Vacuuming helps, as they over time will have less food.
    But you propably won’t get rid of them this way.

    They often infect new houses either by walking from house to house, or by being transported from stores (they lay eggs in cardboard and stuff).
    So yes, it’s getting fairly common.

  8. They are nothing “dangerous” actually they are in clean spaces.

    Consider this a no light neighbour.

  9. They thrive in bathrooms and often arrive through cardboard boxes and “old” things. So if you buy new furniture make sure to store your empty boxes outside your home until you can recycle them.

    They live off of dust and random tiny bits our body doesn’t need like dead skin. All things you can find in the corners of a room, so make sure to vacuum regularly or maybe move that piece of furniture that makes it impossible to reach the tricky corners.

    There are specific traps for these that you can buy at Jernia, and probably other stores as well but I know for a fact they have them (that’s where I bought mine).

    Good luck in killing off those bastards 🙂

  10. Most norwegians have not discoverd the glory of the dehumidifier. in my experiance after i installed 1 thats running 24/7 they have declined sharply and i dont see them anymore.

  13. electricity is too high and we avoid using heater as we can, so moisture will build up, we already have dehumidifier, any other advice on how to avoid moisture if not using heaters?

  17. Insect spray kills them, insect spray lasts on surfaces if you dont wash it away with liquids between 4 and 6 weeks.

    We had an infestation when living in Oslo, and there were exterminators, they just put out poison bait, just a tiny dab of some goo they put several spots around the baseboards of all the rooms. And they said they should all be dead within around 6 months. We moved after around 5 months, and they didn’t or didn’t properly do it in the communal cellar. So they followed us in corrugated cardboard boxes.

    Your insurance may cover this, there may be a few thousand kr as copay.

    What we did before initiating the insurance (after moving, before moving it was the building owners who did the insurance claim), is that we went on a war to remove all corrugated cardboard. Any we couldn’t get rid of we heavily sprayed with insect spray. We washed cleaned all the floors in the whole house, and we sprayed the floor near the baseboards throughout the whole house. We did this monthly for a few months. Most important is where they can feed and hide, like kitchen, and storage areas

    Have not seen any trace of them since the middle of summer.

    Keep in mind the insect spray is super nasty, its small dose nerve poison. I used masks, tried to breath it as little as possible, and aired out for hours before letting our daughter be in the house again. If you spray too much in one spot you can get white spots. This is just the insect spray in droplet form, we let it be there until we cleaned before the next spraying. It was not hard to remove, even after a month.

    This may not be enough, in case they are nesting somewhere different from our experience, or if they have a huge population. Idk. I’d try it, and if it doesn’t help then use the insurance. If you see a lot of dead remains of them after doing the insect spray or getting poison bait from a professional, thats normal, thats what you want to see. It can take some time to remove all of them, because they lay eggs

  18. Our housing association sent round Nokas to deal with these. Had to move all furniture in my apartment away from the walls. A guy came round and put some poison along all the edges of the walls. It was done to the entire block (as they apparently move between apartments)

    Ive never seen a living one in my apartment, but a dead one near my front door about 5 days after the poison was laid.

    Maybe you can contact your landlord about it.

    ​

    Edit: the stuff they used was called ADVION COCKROACH GEL BAIT, he put it at 50cm gaps in tiny dots (less than 1mm big)

  19. Man, I had such an issue with these. I discovered that a disturbing amount of them lived under my carpet, and they were everywhere in my bedroom. Ended up suffering a flood, and once the water had receded they never returned lol

  20. I live in a newer apartment and is careful with any old cardboard boxes so I never had them. But in general you want to clean your house very well. Try to have furniture in a way that dont allow them places to hide or places where its difficult to clean. (Essentially have the house be as «open» as possible) then vacuum regularly and clean the floor with soapy water. I use a blue cleaning agent called «supra – effektiv grovrengjøring» which is toxic to the creatures so the larvae etc will be forced out of the micro gaps in floors and walls and die. Where I live we have carpet beetles that fly in through the windows in the summer so I have to keep a clean house to avoid them living here.

  26. My apartment was full of these when I moved in

    I ended up vacuuming them as I saw them. Never got rid of them before I moved

  30. We had an exterminator come over and place dollops of poison on the frames around the bathrooms/ washrooms. They all died in a week and then a month passed and the eggs hatched and they all died aswell, havent seen one since

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