Google brought me to this site because someone else had a similar question. Many years ago I picked up a coffee table from the trash of a delapidated house. Not long after I felt "things" on my legs in my car. These spread indoors and were mostly active at night. Since then I have controlled them in my house pretty well. Sometimes feel them in bed at night - but the next day put on all clean bedding or throw in the dryer to kill them. BUT they are in my car. I have had several different cars since first getting them. I guess because the car sits in the humidity, etc. Then even if I don't feel them while I am in the car, shortly after I feel the little pin pricks or itches. I always take a shower shortly after coming home so as not to spread them. It is really bringing me down. So afraid to give anyone a ride in my car. I have tried pesitcides which only make the bite more stinging and the pesticides make me feel sick. Have tried "Kleen-free". Does no good. Tried bounce dryer sheets. They also made me feel overcome with perfumy fumes - but bugs still alive.

Please help.

RubyPitbull

13579, I just found your post. I don't think you have invisible mites. I think the table might have been in a flea infested home. You don't usually see fleas because by the time they bite you they have jumped off. If you feel the bites and have tiny red itchy dots on your legs, and within a day or less, they are gone, then it is fleas that are biting you. If this is not the case, I think what I am about to suggest will have the same effect on whatever infestation you are dealing with.

Go to a local veterinarians office. They have these cans of flea spray for furniture and carpet. I can never remember the name of the product but it is a tall white aerosol can. They aren't cheap ($20), but highly effective at getting rid of fleas. You may need two cans. Pick a day that you know you don't have to go anywhere. Read the directions for use carefully and follow them. Spray down the entire car. After a few hours, vacuum as much as you can. You may need to do a second treatment within a week or two. It is a chemical and yes, not good to breathe in. But, you don't have much choice at this point. It is the only stuff that I have found that really gets rid of infestations like this. So, after you do a treatment and wait the few hours, roll the windows down so the car can air out before you vacuum.

Good luck.

Chris50

Just one quick addition. On carpet, use Mule Team Borax. You can buy it at Walmart... Sprinkle the powder over ther whole carpet area and vacuum it up. Do this once a week for three weeks in a row. The fleas get the chemical on their legs, which they ingest and it will kill them off. Since the fleas life cycle is so fast (they lay between 200-300 eggs a day!), it will take that long to eradicate them. I would go with RubyPitbull suggestions re the car, that's good advice.

Matt3046

Sometimes you just need to call a professional. I think this might be one of those times. Just because of the length of time.

hvac1000

Bed bugs???

trelawney

hi - i have the same problem. someone just told me to try eucalyptus oil - wash stuff in it, spray it (diluted) onto furniture, bedding, etc - if you google "eucalyptus oil mites" it sounds promising. then i found this site Method for killing house dust mites in clothing and other soft materials - Patent 20020022043 that lists a whole bunch of essential oils that kill mites quite effectively. i just found this stuff out tonight, so i haven't tried it yet - but you can bet i'm going out in the morning to find some and give it a try!!!!

Suzy-Q

Oh people-- these are way more sophisticated than fleas! They are totally invisible!
I battled this for months. It infests all things cloth/carpet/bed/upholstery. After cleaning like crazy for months, the ONLY thing that worked was a product called "Bifen." It is a poison pest control and some states require you have a license to use it but mine didn't-- I just bought it at the Co-op and mixed it with water and sprayed everywhere (I don't have kids or pets to worry about though.) I still had a problem with it in the carpet so I mixed the Bifen in my steam cleaner and ran in and it totally killed them in the carpet. As for my clothes, I didn't want the Bifen near my skin and washing/drying my clothes wasn't killing them, so I bought a deep freeze and did a rotation-- putting my clothes in a week at a time and then keeping them in garbage bags until I got the rest of my house rid of the mites. Also, change your vaccuum bag after each use (go outside to change it and immediately put a plastic bag and seal the used vaccuum bag before throwing away so they don't get out.) You have to treat these things like a bio-hazard. I vacuumed my car and sprayed Bifen in there as well. I haven't found anybody (doctors included) who can tell me what they are, but they are invisible and feel like pin-pricks and have left tiny red dots across my chest, belly, and upper arms that never went away (3 years later.) I used the measures above which are what worked after months of pulling my hair out! Good luck!!!

YodaCat

These sound like Black Pepper Mites. I have been battling these animals for two months now to point that I recently thought I was going to go insane. My husband is not affected by them and there for awhile he treated me as though I was making it up because you can't see them readily. They seem to primarily be confined to my bedroom and office in our house, but lately they have begun biting me during the day in other rooms. It all started one day when I picked my two cats up from the groomer and she announced to me that my cats had fleas. She had "flea dipped" them and I took them home, only to discover that they still had whatever the little bug was so I washed them each week with a flea and tick shampoo. This was quite a chore considering that oe of my cats is an adopted feral cat who lives with us and he does not like humans to touch him. I had to capture him and haul him into the shower to give him a flea and tick shampoo which was akin to wrestling an alligator into submission. When all of this did not work, I went to the vet and put them all on Advantage. About this time, I began itching and noticing that I felt little pin pricks occasionally and something began inhabiting my bed at nite and crawling all over my legs, up my back and then biting me. At first I thought they were fleas and then gravitated to thinking they were "No See-ums". To date, I have done the following without success in ridding our house of these pests: bought a new bed and had the old one - mattress, box springs and frame hauled away, washed all our bedding on a daily basis using flea and tick shampoo I bought from Petsmart, bombed and fumigated each room and the entire house multiple times, had a handyman come out and trim all of the trees back away from the house, have had two pest control companies come in and cover the entire house with pesticides of all different types to the tune of over $1,000 and still climbing. Today they are spraying our lawn and all of our trees with insecticide and will be doing this monthly from this point forward. They keep insisting erroneously that they are "fleas", however, these animals do not exhibit the same behavior as fleas. They are tiny, tiny black specks about the size of a speck of pepper. I even captured some dead ones and one live one and they still told me they were "fleas". Now after searching the internet, I know they are biting mites of some sort that sound a lot like the Black Pepper Mites that several other people in Florida have also reported.
Fortunately, I recently stumbled upon a device that you can order about 3-4 inches in size for $24.95 which is battery operated and you can hitch it to your beltclip. It has a fan on it and a filter attachment which contains the same ingredients of a citronella candle x 400%. The device is battery operated called a "Bite Shield" and when you turn it on, it disperses a scent that covers about a 15' square foot area surrounding you that does not smell bad to humans but apparently biting bugs don't like it. The cartridge lasts for 120 hours and can be worn bed. Last night was the first decent night sleep I have had in the past two months. I purchased two and placed one on my dresser and wore the other attached to my PJ bottoms and let them run all night. I did not experience any crawling, biting or prickly sensation all night and was able to actually sleep in my bedroom. Up to this point I had been sleeping on the Sofabed in my husband's office which was the only place in the house where I received any relief at nite - albeit the back pain from the Sofabed. In addition, I read on the internet that some people had success with a "vinegar-salt-water" solution that you can make at home and spray on carpets, upholstery, etc. So I decided to do a hot bath and added vinegar and salt to the water. After soaking in the tub and rubbing the vinegar-salt solution over my body multiple times, I noticed a number of the little pests dead and floating in the bath water. Apparently they don't like vinegar and salt is lethal to them. This may have also helped. Today, I plan to spray the entire house with the vinegar-salt water solution to see if it eradicates the animals in the carpets et al. Anyway, for those of you out there who think you will never have a normal life again, there is hope apparently. While I haven't had enough time to test all of this over a long period of time, I do know that what I experienced last nite was the first ray of hope I had seen in some time.

20anonymous08

One question for you....do you have any birds constantly around your house? Or a nest somewhere on your house? I just took care of these little suckers called "bird mites" if you google that you can find some helpful info. The main site I used is called birdmite.org (at least I am pretty positive that is the web address. These are terrible...as you mentioned - regular pesticide not only does NOT kill them it aggrivates them and they attach more. Not alot of people know about these...but I have a pigeon infestation on my roof - they made a nest next to the air conditioner...which in turn sucks in the particles when I turn it on and the mites were all over in the room. A thing that helped me with sleeping is spraying the bed in baby oil. They 'talk' to each other by scent so therefore with the sent of baby oil they will not attack.