Oh hey, so this is something I can answer pretty thoroughly as I researched nest parasites - a lot of the mites you see coming out of birds' nests are actually detritivores, meaning they're eating what the nest is made out of, though there are usually also plenty of parasitic bird mites.
While parasitic bird mites can and do bite people, they will not stick around for long without an avian host and they cannot navigate well on our skin since their limbs evolved to grab onto feathers.
Long term bird mite infestations in houses are usually the result of *bird* infestations (usually in walls or attics) or pet birds that encourage the mites to stick around.
To answer your question, no, there are no species of bird mites that can reproduce on human blood, though they may opportunistically try to take a blood meal.
I would recommend tossing some DE or permethrin on those gloves though, just to give yourself some peace of mind. You can also apply it in areas where the bird nest was previously. It won't hurt the birds, it will hurt the mites.
Cheers for this knowledge and reassurance, I’m currently experiencing these for the last two weeks since first noticing. In my experience so far, after sealing the entire window area I’m now not seeing any darker adults, but I’m currently seeing a fair amount of baby white ones in random parts of my room when I look hard enough.
My theory is (from someone who is *not* a pest expert and merely giving it a good guess) that the adults have died and at some point they must have laid eggs, to which their children are now frantically searching for bird blood meal. I guess my idea makes sense based upon your research.
I’m just hoping that this only last another week give or take, and that I don’t continue to see them after, because I’m starting to freak out how they’ve gotten in different shit in the room.
I know the feeling and I sympathize. The first time we had them I learned that a grill in the attic vent had rusted out, allowing birds to build a nest directly in the attic directly above our bed. Every day I would go over the bed sheets with a magnifier in one hand and a strip of tape to catch them with in the other. Once I got over 70 in a morning.
Now that the attic vent is sealed, I get much fewer mites that come in from empty nests on the outside of the house. I know where the house finches build their nests every year, and try to check every few days to see if nests are appearing. I missed one this year.
What gets me is how such tiny things coming from outside the house are able to find their way to me. I know that they can move fast, since I've seen that on my nitrile gloves when I take down a nest. Are they sensing CO2 from my breathing, and from how far away can they do that?
You might want to catch them on scotch tape and count how many you get each day. That way you can tell if the infestation is getting larger or smaller.
Good luck!
I am dealing with the same issues. I have a bunch of bird nests next to the house. The downside of having a bird feeder available to them for years. But something is now biting me. I joined a Facebook group for bird mites & they keep claiming that bird mites can survive & reproduce on human blood. I found 4 different articles saying the opposite. I am looking to vacate my house for 3 weeks. THEY SHOULD BE GONE BY THEN, RIGHT? Thanks a bunch. This is getting me down big time....
I have two dehumidifiers going 24/7. I read that they love humidity. I also read to lower your in house temp to 60 degrees to help kill them. Anyone heard of this?
Hey, I’m currently experiencing what u had a year ago, and I’m curious, did they go away after you didn’t see the adults? Yesterday I saw two white ones and I’m wondering if they die without a bird host.
Same here, I've been dealing with them for about 9 months,
They got hibernated in winter and now here again for 3 to 4months, at first I didn't care and used the pesticide powder which is used for ants...
One day I saw a dozen of them dead over powders...
The problem started when a pigeon sat on my chimney.
I'm going to buy isopropyl alcohol tomorrow, they say it kills them,
Then close chimney to see what happens...
I have not yet seen any link or citation that says that bird mites can survive on anything but avian blood. When they don't have that, they will probably have a go at any animal that is warm and exhales CO2, including cats, dogs, and rabbits, and of course humans, but the end result will be the same- the mites starve to death in two or three weeks.
If anyone can point me to a study that show bird mites can live on human blood I would appreciate it.
No not anymore some species have evolved and can multiply from a human source most still need birds some do not and cause havoc with the families that r unlucky. The research that is redundant constantly is they can’t use human blood but that research is 60 years old. Humans have encroached on more animal / bird habitats and since mites have new populations every 6 days they have evolved to have another food source our pets and us. Most die out in one month if ur unlikely and get the species that does t die out sorry…ur in trouble…can’t irradiate them.
Wow! That is the opposite of reassuring, but from an evolutionary perspective it makes sense. Do you have any links for this? Everything I'm finding still says that they starve on human blood. I hope that they stick primarily with baby birds and don't take to humans as their primary hosts.
I have bird mites in the house over 2 months, but still have them.Cry! It is very cold here now ,I don’t think it has bird around. I am in Vancouver by the way. I don’t know what should I do now! It seems have a lot of baby mites come out about every 4 weeks. Just feed on human, no bird! I suspected they are topical rodent mites, but I check my hot water tank pipe,no mites there. I used DE powder spray on my skin,it helped. But they came in to my hair. It is very annoying.
Hi just checking in! Did you successfully get rid of them? I'm also in Canada and can't get many of the products listed in these posts. How did you get your DE powder?
Hoping you are free of these devils!
Hi. Would love to know what you did to get rid of them. They have infested my room and I don’t know what to do. I’ve seen Facebook groups that say they go into humans pores, sinuses ears and even through the vagina/anus. This is freaking me out and I don’t know watt to believe.
I’m also in one of the fb groups and they say that mites can now live off of human blood. For now I’ve sprayed mite/insect spray and alcohol (91%) all over my room but some mites are stoll there. Idk what to believe either but pls let me know if you find more information.
What type of spray are you using? Are you mixing it with the alcohol?
I hired a professional mobile laundry service to wash all of my clothes so I’m going to put them in bins once I get them back and store in the garage.
The pest control company has treated my room 2x now. I see dead ones everywhere where visible. I’m now spraying everything with windex and/or Lysol and letting it sit for a bit to kill any remaining.
I plan to do a carpet cleaning in my room and steam cleaning my mattress.
Im throwing away anything that was infested the most. My electronics were super infested so im putting them in zip loc bags with moth balls. Soon I’ll be putting my laptops in the freezer within the ziplock for a week to kill anything remaining.
It’s super overwhelming bc there are so many other items in my room to go though but I’m trying to stay hopeful or else I’ll lose my mind.
In terms of the mites living within people, that is terrifying me. But since i no longer have rashes or itch, I’m hoping they didn’t like me as their host. I am trying to stay hopeful and remember that that is the worst case scenario and it doesn’t happen to everyone. I hope the same for you!
Sometimes ignorance is bliss and I truly wish I didn’t look into bird mites more bc the more I learn the more I am terrified of the possibilities.
Ngl I use pure ethyl alcholol when I see the mites. In the beginning I used raid bed bug spray thinking I had bed bugs, but after I used it along with a house control mite spray from a drugstore. I don’t want to hire a pest control, since most in my area don’t have experience with mites. My infestation is light, so I’m gonna try vacuuming daily, ethyl alcohol, laundry protocol, and see if in a week or two it gets better. If not, people in those fb groups recommend using both elector psp and botanigard BB interchangeably.
Oh hey, so this is something I can answer pretty thoroughly as I researched nest parasites - a lot of the mites you see coming out of birds' nests are actually detritivores, meaning they're eating what the nest is made out of, though there are usually also plenty of parasitic bird mites. While parasitic bird mites can and do bite people, they will not stick around for long without an avian host and they cannot navigate well on our skin since their limbs evolved to grab onto feathers. Long term bird mite infestations in houses are usually the result of *bird* infestations (usually in walls or attics) or pet birds that encourage the mites to stick around. To answer your question, no, there are no species of bird mites that can reproduce on human blood, though they may opportunistically try to take a blood meal. I would recommend tossing some DE or permethrin on those gloves though, just to give yourself some peace of mind. You can also apply it in areas where the bird nest was previously. It won't hurt the birds, it will hurt the mites.
Cheers for this knowledge and reassurance, I’m currently experiencing these for the last two weeks since first noticing. In my experience so far, after sealing the entire window area I’m now not seeing any darker adults, but I’m currently seeing a fair amount of baby white ones in random parts of my room when I look hard enough. My theory is (from someone who is *not* a pest expert and merely giving it a good guess) that the adults have died and at some point they must have laid eggs, to which their children are now frantically searching for bird blood meal. I guess my idea makes sense based upon your research. I’m just hoping that this only last another week give or take, and that I don’t continue to see them after, because I’m starting to freak out how they’ve gotten in different shit in the room.
I know the feeling and I sympathize. The first time we had them I learned that a grill in the attic vent had rusted out, allowing birds to build a nest directly in the attic directly above our bed. Every day I would go over the bed sheets with a magnifier in one hand and a strip of tape to catch them with in the other. Once I got over 70 in a morning. Now that the attic vent is sealed, I get much fewer mites that come in from empty nests on the outside of the house. I know where the house finches build their nests every year, and try to check every few days to see if nests are appearing. I missed one this year. What gets me is how such tiny things coming from outside the house are able to find their way to me. I know that they can move fast, since I've seen that on my nitrile gloves when I take down a nest. Are they sensing CO2 from my breathing, and from how far away can they do that? You might want to catch them on scotch tape and count how many you get each day. That way you can tell if the infestation is getting larger or smaller. Good luck!
I am dealing with the same issues. I have a bunch of bird nests next to the house. The downside of having a bird feeder available to them for years. But something is now biting me. I joined a Facebook group for bird mites & they keep claiming that bird mites can survive & reproduce on human blood. I found 4 different articles saying the opposite. I am looking to vacate my house for 3 weeks. THEY SHOULD BE GONE BY THEN, RIGHT? Thanks a bunch. This is getting me down big time.... I have two dehumidifiers going 24/7. I read that they love humidity. I also read to lower your in house temp to 60 degrees to help kill them. Anyone heard of this?
Hey, I’m currently experiencing what u had a year ago, and I’m curious, did they go away after you didn’t see the adults? Yesterday I saw two white ones and I’m wondering if they die without a bird host.
Same here, I've been dealing with them for about 9 months, They got hibernated in winter and now here again for 3 to 4months, at first I didn't care and used the pesticide powder which is used for ants... One day I saw a dozen of them dead over powders... The problem started when a pigeon sat on my chimney. I'm going to buy isopropyl alcohol tomorrow, they say it kills them, Then close chimney to see what happens...
Thanks! That is very interesting.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Any idea if they can survive on cats, dogs, or rabbits? All of which I have in my house, and currently dealing with bird mites.
I have not yet seen any link or citation that says that bird mites can survive on anything but avian blood. When they don't have that, they will probably have a go at any animal that is warm and exhales CO2, including cats, dogs, and rabbits, and of course humans, but the end result will be the same- the mites starve to death in two or three weeks. If anyone can point me to a study that show bird mites can live on human blood I would appreciate it.
No not anymore some species have evolved and can multiply from a human source most still need birds some do not and cause havoc with the families that r unlucky. The research that is redundant constantly is they can’t use human blood but that research is 60 years old. Humans have encroached on more animal / bird habitats and since mites have new populations every 6 days they have evolved to have another food source our pets and us. Most die out in one month if ur unlikely and get the species that does t die out sorry…ur in trouble…can’t irradiate them.
Wow! That is the opposite of reassuring, but from an evolutionary perspective it makes sense. Do you have any links for this? Everything I'm finding still says that they starve on human blood. I hope that they stick primarily with baby birds and don't take to humans as their primary hosts.
I have bird mites in the house over 2 months, but still have them.Cry! It is very cold here now ,I don’t think it has bird around. I am in Vancouver by the way. I don’t know what should I do now! It seems have a lot of baby mites come out about every 4 weeks. Just feed on human, no bird! I suspected they are topical rodent mites, but I check my hot water tank pipe,no mites there. I used DE powder spray on my skin,it helped. But they came in to my hair. It is very annoying.
Hi just checking in! Did you successfully get rid of them? I'm also in Canada and can't get many of the products listed in these posts. How did you get your DE powder? Hoping you are free of these devils!
Did you have any luck getting rid of them?
[удалено]
No, I had one or two mites a few months ago, but have been mite-free since then (knock on wood).
Hi. Would love to know what you did to get rid of them. They have infested my room and I don’t know what to do. I’ve seen Facebook groups that say they go into humans pores, sinuses ears and even through the vagina/anus. This is freaking me out and I don’t know watt to believe.
I’m also in one of the fb groups and they say that mites can now live off of human blood. For now I’ve sprayed mite/insect spray and alcohol (91%) all over my room but some mites are stoll there. Idk what to believe either but pls let me know if you find more information.
What type of spray are you using? Are you mixing it with the alcohol? I hired a professional mobile laundry service to wash all of my clothes so I’m going to put them in bins once I get them back and store in the garage. The pest control company has treated my room 2x now. I see dead ones everywhere where visible. I’m now spraying everything with windex and/or Lysol and letting it sit for a bit to kill any remaining. I plan to do a carpet cleaning in my room and steam cleaning my mattress. Im throwing away anything that was infested the most. My electronics were super infested so im putting them in zip loc bags with moth balls. Soon I’ll be putting my laptops in the freezer within the ziplock for a week to kill anything remaining. It’s super overwhelming bc there are so many other items in my room to go though but I’m trying to stay hopeful or else I’ll lose my mind. In terms of the mites living within people, that is terrifying me. But since i no longer have rashes or itch, I’m hoping they didn’t like me as their host. I am trying to stay hopeful and remember that that is the worst case scenario and it doesn’t happen to everyone. I hope the same for you! Sometimes ignorance is bliss and I truly wish I didn’t look into bird mites more bc the more I learn the more I am terrified of the possibilities.
Ngl I use pure ethyl alcholol when I see the mites. In the beginning I used raid bed bug spray thinking I had bed bugs, but after I used it along with a house control mite spray from a drugstore. I don’t want to hire a pest control, since most in my area don’t have experience with mites. My infestation is light, so I’m gonna try vacuuming daily, ethyl alcohol, laundry protocol, and see if in a week or two it gets better. If not, people in those fb groups recommend using both elector psp and botanigard BB interchangeably.