Mite/Lice identification help

[RedBeardPete]

Hi

Can anyone identify these little guys for me? we have recently discovered them all over our house. They seem to like flat surfaces i.e. drawers, shelves, food cupboards,(!) wooden blinds, tv's (apparently book lice etc are attracted to electrical equip). We have deep cleaned the entire house and have used fly/insect killer spray in a few selected test areas but they seem to come back quite quickly. For scale they are so small they just look like tiny white specks of dust until you realise they are moving. So with the help of a hastily purchased USB microscope, here are a couple of mugshots.
For background, we recently trimmed back some large trees outside the front of the house and I used a lopper from the bedroom window to reach the high branches. The council have told us they are probably book lice and this is how they got in. My concern is they have somehow migrated everywhere - downstairs into the food cupboards and especially around the flour.
All comments much appreciated.

[Rossco]

These are mites and definitely not lice. It's difficult to tell what species, but they look at lot like dust mites, therefore some species in the genus Dermatophagoides. If they're what I think they are then most houses have them and as you probably know they can cause an allergic response in sensitised individuals.

I'd say they were practically impossible to eradicate, but you can control their numbers.

[Rossco]

Also, whatever chemicals you've used so far will have little effect on them as they're probably pyrethroid based, which are insecticides and therefore of limited use against mites. If you wanted to apply some other treatments then you would need an acaricide, such as Acarosan (benzyl benzoate formulations). Take a look on the web for ways of controlling house mites. Apart from washing everything vacuum cleaners with a HEPA filter are supposed to be effective.

With all this said, I'd be inclined to leave them for a few weeks, because you might just be experiencing an unsustainable population explosion. Give it a while and their numbers might just fall back to 'normal' levels.

Hope this helps.

[RedBeardPete]

Thanks for the advice. this helps alot!

Regards

Pete

[Rossco]

Pete, not that this has any implications for controlling the mites you are seeing, but you may want to look up another pyroglyphid mite genus related to Dermataphagoides. It is Euroglyphus.

Ta

Ross

[POOR ME]

hi we have exactly the same problem as you. and i think they are called glycyphagus domesticus. hope this helps.
unfortunately i dont know how to get rid of them either. as you said they like flat wooden surfaces and it would be impossible to see if they are on fabric
and we also have them throughout the house, they are very hard to see with the naked eye. the best way i have found to see them is with an l.e.d torch laid sideways
I think the council have miss informed you about them coming from trees as we dont have any trees near our house and they look to be exactly the same mites as your pics.

[Mariadeluca]

I have the same problem in my house, we've lived there for year and never had this problem before I found them on my bed side table. Started out I found one or two now they seem to be increasing. It maybe due to the quickly changing weather we're having... we've also had our gutting redone and I'm not sure if its cuased a problem or not.

tonight we caught one and put it under the microscope and this is a photo I took from my phone.



I would really appreciate it if someone knew how to get rid of them, I've cleaned and cleaned. we're going to stick the heating on this weekend hopefully that will dry them out but I would also like to try some chemicals, so if anyone knows of anything that might work I would be really grateful!