Warning to homeowners if you spot a tiny silver insect

If you spot a tiny silver insect roaming around in your home, it could be a warning sign of a huge and expensive problem.

The little creature in question is a silverfish, a silver wingless insect shaped with a tapered abdomen at the end, hence giving it a fish-like appearance.

But don’t worry, they won’t harm you – as they prefer a diet of carbohydrates like cereal, rolled oats, and other starches as oppose to human flesh.

However, if you see the pesky little insect in your home, it means you have a damp problem, which can be costly if it goes unchecked.  

Silverfish are nocturnal in nature and have many of the same habits as cockroaches – meaning that they are household pests.

They thrive around water and moisture and need humidity above 75 percent to survive, so much so that they can survive for a year or more without eating as long as water is available.

You can find them in bathrooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, garages and cabinets, and they can only survive outside of high humidity areas for a short period of time.

So if you see one darting around these places, it’s a pretty good sign that you have damp and that there’s moisture inside your property. 

And that’s just the beginning, if left unchecked, a continuous damp problem can cause bricks to crack, plaster to decay and mould spores to spread, which will ultimately destroy your home. 

However your home could become damp for a multitude of reasons including poor ventilation, a leaking roof, and plumbing problems such as a leaking washing machine or dishwasher.

Silverfish thrive around water and moisture and need humidity above 75 percent to survive – so if you spot them in your home it could mean you have a huge damp problem

The cause of damp can be difficult to lockdown but the truth remains that spotting silverfish indoors can be a sign that there’s damp to be sorted out. 

The news follows a report once made by the National Trust that the nation’s historic houses were under siege from an army of insects – including the silverfish.

The trust said historic artefacts like 18th century furniture, rare Chinese wallpaper and even tweed knickerbockers worn by playwright George Bernard Shaw, were all damaged by pests.

The organisation revealed that the top three pests to blame were silverfish, webbing clothes moths and ‘woolly bears’ – carpet beetle larvae which eat silk, wool, fur and feathers. 

Other treasures ruined by pests, included a gilded armchair from 18th century Rome.

Located at the Italian-style palace Ickworth House in Suffolk, its legs became peppered with holes from the so-called ‘woolly bears’.

Meanwhile silverfish ate away at part of the beautiful and extremely rare Chinese wallpaper at Saltram in Devon.

The pesky silver insects also forced staff at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, where the 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots was filmed, to take special measures to protect the rush matting.