Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Mighty Mites

Katie & I have survived our first huge fight as a married couple. It wasn't a fight against one-another, but a fight against mites. It's amazing that such small creatures can cause such big problems. Here's the story:

Over the windy winter, a wooden board covering a spot for an air conditioner was knocked off the exterior wall. In early spring some birds made their nest on the newly exposed ledge. These birds woke us up to beautifully annoying music every morning since then, but we soon found out that their music was the least of our problems. Sunday when we got home from church we noticed some extremely tiny things on our dishes near that area of the house. It soon became obvious that this was not a small band of lost travelers, but a fleet making a home invasion. Some quick internet research connected these critters to the birds outside. These were bird mites.

From 12:30 to 11:30 pm we did our best to fight the mites (with the help of family). The birds were removed (there were either 3 or 4). The area was sprayed and dusted with things bad for all life but humans). The inside was sealed. All dishes were examined and washed. The whole area was shop vacuumed. Clorox was used in unprecedented proportions. And actually, despite the negative prognostication from the bird mite websites, we won the battle (and hopefully, the war... please don't let me jinx it). We have not seen a mite in the apartment for about 24 hours now.

Of course, maybe the remaining ones are just too tiny to see, ugh :)

4 comments:

Mommy of Four said...

Oh that's just GROSS.

Katie said...

I appreciate you not mentioning my hysterical voice or panicked motions of throwing everything out the window...

And on the plus side... we now have the cleanest, most sterilized kitchen in Western New York.

Katie said...

... And with your time frame, don't forget the 6 hours (1:30-4:00 & 9:00-12:30)we spent cleaning everything.

Ugh.

Jecca said...

oh i'm so sorry! that's terrible.