How to avoid bringing paper silverfish home from a vacation place?

Question

I'm currently on the last full day of a week's stay at a vacation bungalow in the Netherlands. Tomorrow I will be going home, also in the Netherlands. This morning, I went to grab something from a bag and I saw several paper silverfish running away. I've unpacked, folded out and waved around all the items still in the bags, and found a few more. The bags are now re-packed and there won't be time to repeat the entire process tomorrow morning. Some paperfish ran off to places where I couldn't find them for manual extermination.

These paper silverfish are known, notorious pests that can do quite a bit of damage to clothes, books and wallpaper. I don't want to bring into my home under any circumstances, but I'm afraid with the amount I saw this morning they may have already nestled themselves into my luggage, and laid eggs. I brought two sports bags with textiles and a crate with entertainment, among it books and a piece of embroidery I'm working on, all of them are stored close together in the corner of the room, at the foot end of the bed. Throwing all of it in the trash is not an option for me.

What measures should I take on this short notice to not take these pests home and turn into a problem there?

Answer 1

For your textiles, wash them as soon as you are home, if you can empty the bags outside and bring the clothes to the machine in buckets.

Those things that can not be washed, store them in an air tight box with lid and check regularly, like before putting them in and every few weeks, or when you need to use them.

I tested one I found in an empty huge mug, it could not get out against the steep smooth sides but did not die either. So waiting for them to starve will not work.

I am not sure but freezing kills many bugs, may be worth for your embroidery.

The only real damage I have from them is if they are in an enclosed environment with no natural food for them, like dust. So keep checking that box.

Answer 2

Given your description, you pretty much can’t avoid the possibility of some coming home with you at this point, which means you will need to deal with them at home. And unfortunately silverfish are notoriously hard to get rid of because they can live for many months without eating as long as they have a viable water supply, which means you will need to make an active effort to kill them.

General advice for any pest insects:

• Freezing at a temperature below -5 degrees Celsius for 72 hours will kill almost all insects with near 100% reliability. At least in the US, this approach is routinely used at zoos that keep colonies of non-native insects when changing the substrate in their enclosures to ensure that there are no live insects or eggs in the old substrate before discarding it.
• Sustained heating to a temperature above 50 degrees Celsius for an hour or more will also kill almost all insects with near 100% reliability. Higher temperatures require less time to achieve equivalent results, though the relation is not linear. If you have a heated tumble dryer for your clothes (not a heat-pump clothes dryer, those don’t actually heat things up), it should be able to achieve this easily with the higher temperature settings on it.
• Borax and boric acid are extremely effective insecticides against most household pests, including silverfish, carpet beetles, and clothes moths. Spreading either of them about in areas where the pests are found will usually get rid of an infestation quickly. However, both borax and boric acid are mildly toxic (long-term exposure is potentially risky for humans) and potentially dangerous to use around children and pets.
• Scutigera coleoptrata, commonly known as the house centipede, is an extremely effective biological control for almost every common household pest insect you can think of. While technically not native anywhere outside of the Mediterranean, they are generally considered to be of minimal concern as an invasive species and can be bought live online in many parts of the world (both for this usage, and as food for some reptile species).

For silverfish (Lepisma saccharinum) specifically (though this also applies to varying degrees to other members of the order Zygentoma):

• Silverfish have a very consistent and predictable diet, and very predictable behavior, so it’s relatively easy to make effective traps for them. Rice, flour, sugar, and other carbohydrate-rich foods are excellent bait, and they can’t climb smooth surfaces well, so setting up a small glass dish with steep sides, a bit of bait inside, and a way for the silverfish to get in will often result in collecting a significant percentage of any silverfish in an area over the course of a few nights.
• Silverfish require a rather high relative humidity for survival, typically somewhere in the range of 75-95%. They can survive short term in dryer conditions, but not indefinitely. Sealing potentially infested objects in airtight containers with strong chemical dessicants (such as magnesium sulfate or calcium chloride) can be used to draw them out of hiding (they’ll either be attracted to or repelled by the dessicant) and possibly kill them off.
• The essential oil of the Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) is known to be an effective repellent and has show signs of being an effective insecticide against silverfish, though it is not fast and the required concentrations are enough to leave a clear odor. Certain other essential oils, including lavender, citrus, and tea tree oils, are also known to have repellent effects, but are not effective as an insecticide.

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For future prevention when traveling to a tropical area, consider using some of the above-mentioned essential oils on your luggage and other items as a simple repellent to avoid any infestation in the first place.