One of the downsides of country living is the multitudes of bugs. As if dealing with ticks, chiggers, a wide variety of spiders, gnats, flies, horse flies, mosquitos, flying cockroaches, Asian beetles, wasps, cicadas, stink bugs, and more isn't enough, we recently dealt with an infestation of mites in the girls' room.
Since we were remodeling our bedroom, and since we practice co-sleeping, the baby and I had been sleeping in the girls' room. Our eldest daughter sleeps on a queen size bed and the baby and I were sharing it with her. We also had all three girls clothes, as well as mine and the babies in that room.
For months there had been birds nesting in the wall by the window. I had informed my husband about it and he wasn't in a rush to try to get the birds out. Besides being annoying every morning we thought they were pretty harmless. Although I was concerned about their droppings accumulating and attracting bugs.
One night as my daughter and I were preparing to go to sleep, I thought I felt a bug crawlign on my face. I asked my daughter if I had a tick or something and she said she didn't see anything. So we went to sleep. I had a fitful sleep that night as it was blazing hot and I felt like I had bugs crawling on me. I thought it was my imagination!
Finally, I thought there is no way I am imagining. So I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and saw nothing on my face even though I felt something crawling. I wiped my face and a minute later I felt it again. I was wondering if I was going nuts for a second. Then I thought to lean real close to the mirror and look closer. Sure enough there was the tiniest critter crawling across my forehead!
I freaked out and ran to investigate the bed. Sure enough the pillows, sheets and wall by the window was crawling with thousands of tiny mites! I immediately woke all three girls, grabbed the baby, and awoke the boys in the room across from them. I had everyone bathe and put on clean clothes. Fortunately, there were plenty of clean clothes in the laundry area for all of us to change into.
I went back up stairs to investigate some more and I saw that they were heavily concentrated on the window trim and only covering the wall by the window and the beds that butt up to that side, as well the desk, book case and toys. They weren't on the other walls though, nor in the hall or boys room. (Thank heavens!)
Then I got on the internet to try to figure out what they were. I was shocked to learn that birds nests located on roofs, in gutters, attics, etc. can cause mite infestations. When the birds leave the nest the mites do too in order to find a new host. Bird mites can bite humans but we did not get any bites at all so we aren't sure if they were bird mites. When my husband went outside the next day to investigate he found that the tree outside the girls room, which brushed against the wall and window, was full of birds and mites. So we aren't sure whether we had bird mites or tree mites.
Upon going to Home Depot to get a mite fogger my husband learned that many people were dealing the same issue as the small foggers were sold out and there was only large packs available. This was confirmed by one of the employees who said that all the moisture we've been having is causing infestations.
After fogging the room a laundry saga began. After a month and a half I FINALLY got all caught up with the laundry generated by our mite fiasco. It took me weeks of multiple (like 3,4,5!) loads of laundry every day to wash every blanket, pillow, piece of clothing from drawers and the closet as well as stuffed animals, and even back packs, in addition to our regular laundry!
Thank god the leaking washer held up even though the laundry room constantly had standing water!!
The one good thing that came out of it all was an opportunity to look at every piece of clothing

and ask myself and my eldest daughter, "Do you love it?" We got rid of a lot of clothes!
It took me about as long to do the laundry as it did for my husband to complete most of the remodeling of our room! Happily the house is now back in order.
Until he takes the drop kitchen ceiling apart and replaces it with drywall that is!