Mites on My Kitchen Floor and Communist Leader Spooky

July 6th, two days after feeding the worms, I came home from work and found this mitey mess:

I swept it up and avoided looking toward the worm bin corner of my kitchen until Saturday, the 9th, spending my time with Spooky instead. Spooky insisted on doing his impressions of Communist-Leader-on-a-Throne-of-Pillows. While Spook doesn't know the difference between pillows and folded towels, he did insist they be freshly washed, dried and hot from the dryer -- not suprising as Hollywood is his ambition. Spook really gets into role-playing.

Kim Jong Il Spooky -- unfortunately images including Elvis glasses and platform shoes were out of focus, likely due to his supernatural aura that a human-made camera cannot capture. Dear Leader insisted I post this single image though it is not his best. Not only is He modest, turns out His real focus was on pounding a case of Hennessy and inventing the best cheeseburger I've ever tasted. Absolute success, of course!

Then came Saturday, the 9th.

After sweeping the floor, I pulled Adam out from under the table and was confident the mites were carrying on like mad in there. Those dark rings on the lid clearly came from the mites under the lid, which crunched as I opened it:

Something needs to be done about these red bastards.

Mite Bloom

This is what you can expect if the humidity in your worm bin is too much. Remember what I said about humidity making a mite-friendly environment?

When I was getting ready to feed the worms, I found this brown blob on the floor near the leg of the table under which I keep the worms.

Looking closely, I saw they were mites.

When removing the lid from the nearest worm bin, the lid crunched. Flipping the lid upside-down, I saw quite a few mites on it.

And there were mites all over the cardboard kept over the poop.

Fortunately, the rest of the bin looked normal.

As an FYI, some mites are expected in a worm bin. You'll see them in little clumps on paper or on food. This many though is sort of pushing it. Cut the bin down to a paper-only feeding regiment until the moisture is back to normal. The mite population will miraculously reduce accordingly.