Cough, cough! I'm currently recovering from accidentally inhaling a tiny bit of fumigation spray while trying to seal off the door to my front office. You see, the last couple of days the small front room I use to work from has been invaded by what we first thought were ticks or mites we might have brought back from a weekend hiking trip. Annoying itchy bites appeared alongside sightings of tiny black specks walking across my arms, but we never could ascertain where exactly they were coming from. But upon further careful inspection of the tiny arachnids we captured (with our trusty microscope) and a review of the exterior of our apartment, we deduced the front room is crawling with...
Dealing with a Serious Infestation
...bird mites! The front wall of our apartment has an opening underneath our windows where pigeons have once again taken roost and nested. Our neighbors also reported excess pigeon droppings on the ground level crawling with mites, the very same critters that are hobnobbing inside my home office.
So for now, I've sealed it off and bombed the small room, and hopefully in the next 3-4 hours the interior infestation will be brought under control. Tomorrow, our manager is sending a person to clean, fumigate and seal the opening in the front, hopefully keeping the pigeons away (though we suspect we might need something a bit more forceful to keep them from trying to renest around our apartment). Later we'll have to do a thorough vacuum job and wipe everything down and likely pull things out to inspect for any remaining mites.
For now, we're reading about bird mites and other people's horror stories of the near microscopic pests at Birdmites.org where we learned the following:
Bird Mite Infestation...
Who...people with a bird's nest near the home, apartment dwellers with nesting pigeons, people with pets or other animals which are infested, farmers who raise chickens, people who obtain used furniture, carpet, clothing, etc, that has been infested. This can also include guests of hotels, office workers et al., when the buildings are inhabited by nesting birds.
What...parasitic infestation from bird mites too small to be easily seen without magnification. Symptoms include pinprick bites, often intense itching with or without lesions, small reddened bumps, and a crawling sensation anywhere on the body; with increased activity at night. Some people label these the "creepy crawlies" or "nose ticklers". The intense itching and irritation on the skin is due to the mite's saliva. When a large area is covered with bites it will resemble a rash in appearance, and it is often mistaken for scabies.
Note: I used painter's tape to seal off the door, but I'd recommend wearing a face mask as you apply the tape while the fumigation can is going off. I accidentally took in a modest amount of spray sneaking out from the gaps between the door frame and the door and it made my throat burn for awhile. The good news is it seems like the bug bomb worked, and the room is airing out and vacuumed clean.
Comments (17)
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Ick. I am itching just reading this.
view skyesage's profile
skyesage: haha, that's how everyone reacts when they see the photos. But at least you don't have the itchy red bites all over like I do.
view gregory's profile
Condolences - at least it's not bedbugs!
view home body's profile
That totally sucks. On a cheerier note, I like your yellow paint- and it looks pretty with blue.
view teeze's profile
It was horrible when we got bird mites in our flock from an adopted rooster. Even with constant treatments on our poor birds, we were never able to get rid of them. Fortunately in our case the were entirely uninterested in people since they had tasty chickens to snack on.
We eventually just had to give up. Once the old flock passed away one by one from old age, we just lived for a year without any chickens at all. Then a major cleaning, rebuild, and painting of the chicken coup meant we were able to start again.
view Kaete's profile
I have to send this to my sister. She told me how these doves keep trying to make a nest above her bedroom window and she wants to widen the ledge for them. She better not.
view Icanmakeit's profile
Look no further than the wall to the left of the door...
view muirwoods08's profile
muirwoods08: your astute observation made me chuckle, considering the art piece does indeed look bird and mite related! I guess the warning signs were all there.
view gregory's profile
ugh. i've had this problem before and my cat enjoys scratching a hole into his face every time it flairs up in the summer. I love animals, but i hate birds and i REALLY fucking hate pigeons.
view chusmabilly's profile
Oh God I hope you get rid of them. I've had a similar problem for YEARS!!! I've spent thousands of dollars on fumigation, new bedding, mattresses, beds... linen... etc.
If you have no luck I suggest you try freezing your items. It's the only thing that has worked for me (and when I say "worked" I mean markedly reduced but not vanished completely). If you are successful, please tell me what you did EXACTLY.
I think I also have some kind of mite that only bite me at night. Mine are miniscule and I can't see them with the naked eye. If only I could see them, I feel as though I'd be a step closer to getting rid of them.
A dermatologist (by taking a biopsy) did work out that my "bites" were "consistent with an insect bite"... (not an allergic reaction or "psychosomatic)... but I can only guess that they are a kind of bird or rat mite. UGHHHH!
I wish you ALL the luck in the world.
view TaniaTingel's profile
one of the things i've seen people do to keep nuisance birds at bay is to mount a fake/plastic owl outside the building. owls have a preditory nature and certain birds will stay clear of them. growing up in the Fl Panhandle, i would often see them mounted on the corners of condos at the beaches to keep the sea gulls away from the buildings. they might work for pigeons too. it only takes one or 2 mounted (depending on the size and shape of the building) to keep them away. after goolging it, i've read mixed results but it might be worth a try even inside your own window! tip: someone else i read put a plastic Virgin Mary statue inside their window periodically and they said it worked. the key seems to be remove it periodically cuz the pigeons figure out it's not real if it stays their permanently. good luck!
view denacho's profile
Oh god, we had bird mites start coming into my old apartment in LA... pigeons in the roof tiles. It was AGONY, nothing stopped them, including fumigation. Honestly the only thing that worked was cementing closed the tiles and waiting for the bugs to die off. On the bright side... they can't actually *live* on people or on cats and dogs, so as long as the birds are gone they will eventually die off and not linger in your stuff or anything. If anyone has a persistent problem with them then that's a good indication that the birds (or rats, if you have rat mites) are still around.
view marie516's profile
Thanks for posting this. Makes me totally lose my guilt about not letting those pigeons roost on top of my porch light. And here I felt like a meanie. Not any more!
view JeninLB's profile
Okay, I know this will be gross to many, but we also had a pigeon problem. My husband took it upon himself to put a couple of dried up cat turds on our building's exterior ledge to discourage nest building. It's working!
view wig3000's profile
uggh.. as if it weren't enough to know about major bed-bug infestations... now this as a possibility. uggh this has to le suck.
as for wig3000's comment, pure genius!
view ubertimmo's profile
What did you fumigate with (original author)?
I'm trying to deal with a case of these in one part of my apartment - invisible to naked eye, biting, causing itches, active after 5 pm. My "bites" don't show.
I haven't tried freezing things. I have found that putting dry clothes in the dryer on the hottest setting for 20 minutes kills whatever is in them, so I don't have to wash, say, my coat every time I wear it.
I've also found that Selsun Blue - just the original medicated one, with the red cap - rids my hair and body of them. In laundry, have followed advice to use Borax and ammonia.
But haven't eliminated them from the apartment yet. No idea where they came from, live in big-city highrise.
Have been reading everything I can find online. There unfortunately do seem to be some of these things that can live on people, in spite of previous belief that they could not. Suggestions I mention all found online and tested by me.
view VirginiaK's profile
Followup on my own post earlier today, I think I spoke too soon about the dryer-only treatment - I am feeling too itchy now to be able to say that this was successful.
I am wearing one layer which = something I wore yesterday, and just heat-treated for 20 minutes. I am not feeling bites, but I am feeling itchy.
Possibly dryer-only kills mites, but does not remove the thing they exude that makes you itch.
view VirginiaK's profile