Do you think you have mites? Do you feel bugs crawling on your skin? Is there unexplained itching? Are you getting bites from invisible bugs, losing sleep night after night? That sounds like a nightmare, right? Well, mites are a terrible experience.
Mites are microscopic bugs that are not insects. They are not affected by insecticides whatsoever. In order to control them, you need to use a miticide or a product that is effective on mites.
Not everyone is reactive to these invisible biters so you could have four people in a home and only one is feeling it. One person is itching like a madman and everyone else is fine. This adds fuel to the fire that someone isn’t having a real issue but is, in fact, going off the deep end.
So how do you get mites? The most common cases are when an animal (typically a bird or a rat) nest in, under or around your home. Once the host animal leaves or dies, they remain and go in search of another food source which is you. But it isn’t always that simple.
One guy bought a used truck. The first night after buying the truck, he was miserable with unexplained itching and decided his house was infested with something. So he and his wife went and stayed with the in-laws. But the problem followed him. It ends up, the truck was teeming with mites and he ended up needing to treat the truck, his home, his in-law’s home and his office.
One gal in Vermont had swallows that nested in her new barn. She figured out they brought the mites and treated successfully. But next year, the swallows came back and so did the nightmare.
A guy in Arkansas had a pigeon nesting on his front porch and he enjoyed the nest-building, egg laying, hatchings and flights away. When he decided to remove the nest, the overwhelming and instantaneous eruption of thousands of bug bites was something straight out of a horror movie.
A man on the coast in Florida had marsh rats living under his crawl space. He got rid of the rats only to have misery set in ten days later as the mites went looking for another food source.
But for all the obvious sources of mites, there are just as many with no explanation. You can pick them up from co-workers, from staying at someone’s house or them staying at yours. It is even possible to get them from seats in a theater, on an airplane or in a taxi.
You may never know where the mites came from but the key is to treat as soon as signs are there. The longer mites are allowed to infiltrate, the harder treatment becomes. Regardless of the source of mites, treat quickly to minimize the nightmare.