Silverfish in the house
Silverfish in the house are tiny, ancient insects that live on starch, so they nibble paper, book glue and old photos in damp rooms. Seeing one can send you to the boxes you have not opened in years.
What it may mean
Silverfish are the quiet readers of the house. They feed on starch, and in a home much of that starch comes with paper: the glue in book bindings, wallpaper paste, the coating on old photographs and letters. A box of letters left for twenty years in a damp basement can come out lacy at the edges, grazed by an insect whose family line is older than the dinosaurs. One silverfish darting across the bathroom floor at night can send you down to check the boxes. The papers that matter most are often the plainest: recipe cards in a grandmother's handwriting, a child's first drawing, a note from someone who has since died. Most of them sit unread until something threatens them, and the silverfish simply got there first.
Depending on how you saw it
Running from the spine of an old book
Open a secondhand book and a silverfish may wriggle out of the spine, where the binding glue has fed it for years. Many old books carry an inscription on the flyleaf too. Which book on your shelf would you rescue first, and what is written in it besides the text?
Firebrats by the furnace
Firebrats, close cousins of silverfish, choose the opposite climate and gather near furnaces, ovens and hot water pipes. Same body plan, different comfort zone. Do you do your best work in the cool, damp corners or close to the heat?
Damage to old photographs
Silverfish graze the surface of old prints and the paper behind them, leaving faint scraped trails across faces and skies. The images last longer in dry, sealed boxes. Whose picture would you copy today if you knew the original might not last?
Why it happens in nature
Silverfish are small, wingless insects with silvery scales and three tail filaments, part of one of the oldest insect lineages. They hide in cracks by day and feed at night on starches and sugars in paper, glue, wallpaper paste, fabric and crumbs. They need humid air, so they gather in bathrooms, basements and attics, and they can live for several years.
To reflect on
Which papers in your home would you be sorriest to lose, and when did you last read them?