insectpest
We have newly got these bugs at home and want to get rid of them. They are about 1 cm long. They live under a laminated "floating" floor and they are only active at night – they run around our washroom and one can easily step on them… Is there a way how to get rid of these without removing the floor?
If the product you used mostly worked, you may want to try a second application to wipe out the rest of the colony.
After doing some research there doesn't seem to be any tried and true solution to killing the ants (at least none I could find, I'm sure there are tricks exterminators use that they don't want to share), but most solutions seem to involve drowning the ants (in hot possibly soapy water).
You may want to contact your local pest control specialist, as I'm sure they have dealt with this problem before and no doubt have their own methods. Also having somebody else mess with the ants keeps you safely away from angry fire ants.
The least desirable solution I read about was to dig up the mounds, and "fling" the ants as far as you can. They did mention to make sure you fling the ants down-wind, but I wonder how many times they got a face full of ants before they came up with that little tip :).
We have fought this problem in our rentals before with success using the following techniques.
What doesn't work: Foggers. We treated the rental for MONTHS with weekly applications of foggers - 3 or 4 anti bedbug foggers per floor - hundreds of dollars spent - and the tenants had to leave the building for half a day every week and then deal with the stink and the toxic residues left behind. Not fun, and didn't work at all because bedbugs DON'T hang out where the fumes can get to them.
So, what do you need to do?
First, buy insect resistant, zippered mattress covers. These are usually some kind of plastic. You wrap each mattress in its own cover and zip it shut tight, sealing the bedbugs within the mattress inside. You must take care not to rip these covers or the bugs can get out again. This is done during the treatment process and for some time beyond.
Second, and this is the big step - Treat your entire house with diatomaceous earth (DE). DE is a non toxic, non pesticide means of controlling pests. It's a crushed silica product that is effective in killing not via poison, but by cutting the outer membrane of small insects.
Unlike most dust/powder which is smooth from erosion, DE has microscopic sized jagged edges. Many types of insects have an external shell which is coated with a kind of mucous membrane which helps them retain water. DE slices that membrane to shreds, and the bugs lose all of their moisture to evaporation, so they die of dehydration, NOT poison.
You can buy food grade DE online. It's safe to use around the house, and you can even dust your pets with it (keep away from the face, of course). We have three dogs and when fleas get in the house, we dust the animals and the areas they sleep with DE.
Now bedbugs are not jumpers, so the key with dealing with them is getting the DE where they live and where they travel.
Where they live: Your furniture. Those mattress covers? Open em up and dust both sides of the mattress LIBERALLY with DE, then close it up again. The bedbugs will get coated in it as they crawl around looking for an escape.
Your sofa/chairs - if you can, dust the INSIDES of larger pieces of furniture - heavily. Also apply dust in all the cracks and crevices.
Remove the wall plates - use a dusting sprayer like this:
and spray that dust into all the electrical junction boxes - the idea is to force the dust into the walls where bedbugs travel. (They don't like open areas, they prefer tight spaces and corners.
Also put a ring of dust down around your bed posts where they touch the floor, along the edges of the walls. Dust your carpets with it to.
I personally bought my supplies at Dirtworks ( http://www.dirtworks.net/Diatomaceous-Earth.html ) - I bought 2 five pound bags of food grade DE (which was 1 bag too many, honestly), a few puffer bottles, the glimmer sprayer, and we did ONE heavy application all over the entire property (we even dusted the lawn with the sprayer) and never had a bedbug complaint again.
Best Answer
That's a silverfish. They're harmless to people and they won't do any structural damage to your home, but they do like to eat starch, cellulose, carbs; they'll do damage to wallpaper, book bindings, clothing, that kind of stuff. They like to eat mold and fungi too, and they tend to live in dark, moist / damp places.
As with any pest if you search around on the internet you can find a zillion suggestions for getting rid of them, some more successful than others.
Large infestations usually require an exterminator (if you find them problematic). But for small ones there are various things you can try first. This article on WikiHow has a number of suggestions, too many to reproduce here. Here is another decent article, although it's fairly clear that the author really despises these bugs.