09-27-2008, 11:39 PM
While that is a little gross, we all have bugs crawling all over us every single day.
![[Image: dustmites290906.jpg]](http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/img/environment/dustmites290906.jpg)
Dust mites themselves are harmless. Being blind and deaf leave them virtually harmless to living humans, as they mainly feed off of dust and dead skin. So why bother? Well, they have a repulsive overpopulation crisis larger than that of China and India put together. Dust mites can live up to approximately four months, with one of those months dedicated to their growth from egg to adult. During this time, the female mite can lay approximately 40 to 100 eggs in the latter half of her life. This breaks down to each egg-laying female being able to create 25-30 new dust mites in one week.
To give you an idea about the level of dust mite overpopulation, here are a few figures:
Dust mites themselves are harmless. Being blind and deaf leave them virtually harmless to living humans, as they mainly feed off of dust and dead skin. So why bother? Well, they have a repulsive overpopulation crisis larger than that of China and India put together. Dust mites can live up to approximately four months, with one of those months dedicated to their growth from egg to adult. During this time, the female mite can lay approximately 40 to 100 eggs in the latter half of her life. This breaks down to each egg-laying female being able to create 25-30 new dust mites in one week.
To give you an idea about the level of dust mite overpopulation, here are a few figures:
- 1/2 a teaspoon dust can contain 1,000 dust mites
- 30,000 dust mites can be in one ounce of dust
- Based on the age, a mattress can contain 100,000 to 10,000,000 dust mites