Hello,
I say possible, I mean they could be something else, but as I've found them mainly in books, and paper and anything papery related, then I'm going to presume that is what they are. Tiny little whitish/brown things. Relatively fast for their size I guess. I first found them inside one of my binders. I thought I would sit and organise my printed out knitting patterns, and hole punch them and place them into my binder in the right sections, and when I opened into the middle of the binder I saw probably about 20 tiny brown dots, at first I thought they were specks of dust or something, but when I poked at one it moved. I do have a habit of buying second hand books. And my teddy making book that was stored next to the binder also had some in, as did my second hand knitting book, and boxes of photos, cardboard boxes etc, hence why I'm thinking they are book lice.
I live in an old town house, so my bedroom is essentially the attic, though there is a small square door in my ceiling that I assume leads to a small attic (I've lived here 5 years and never been up).
I've binned the binder, books, went through everything in my room (almost) and have either frozen anything I wanted to keep for 24hrs, or have binned it. I have a mountain of bin bags sat at the back door waiting to be taken away at the weekend.
I've sprayed Raid for cockroaches and ants, as it was the only bug spray I could find that had pyrethum in it. So far I've sprayed a can and half in my room. I'm going to work my way down the stairs, as my daughter has a tonne of books, I checked a handful and only found one bug, so I'm being hopeful that her room isn't as bad.
It's been a very distressing time, as I've had to throw memories, and gifts as well as art work, but it has meant I've had a huge clear out, just wish it was under better circumstances.
I'm also washing any laundry that was in the laundry basket that was near items that had bugs on.
So far apart from the one in a book in my daughters room, I have only seen them in mine, ofc they are tiny so I may have missed them but now I find myself staring at everything looking for movement or something that stands out as wrong. It's driving me crazy!
I've checked my books on a shelf that is about 6ft up and out of the 6 I checked none seem to be infected. And my dvd's that are underneath but in a cupboard on the floor also seem to be bug free.
I can only assume I brought them in with an infected book, or picked them up from somewhere after visiting, we recently stayed some place and I took books and paper with me, they could have hitched a lift back, but I have no way of knowing where exactly they came from.
I don't have a bedroom door, but I have sprayed all around the banister and stair case, to hopefully create a raid barrier to stop them going down stairs, though as I've had them this long, if they've wanted to go downstairs, I'm sure they would have. Plus, having to carry infected material down the stairs probably didn't help.
They were mainly at this side of my room, which is where my knitting book and binder where. But it is underneath the window. I did have a giant cardboard box under the window too that my chair came in and couldn't get rid of, a month or so ago I moved it to the other side of the room, and I think that is how they spread over there, but again this is just me guessing.
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to explain what I've found and what I have done so far. I've also vacuumed the majority of my bedroom, I can't quite get under the bed until I have some muscles here to help me at the weekend - king sized bed, no where to move it and I'm a pint sized person.
I know to freeze things I want to keep for 24hrs to kill the possible eggs, I've sprayed raid around my room, so much that 2 days later the residual is giving me a tender throat! I think I may be going over the top with the raid!
I can only do so much freezing and washing at a time. But is there anything else I can do to help with this?
Oh, my environment, well, to me my room appears dry and damp free, though there is some wall paper peeling under a corner, but I looked there and saw nothing, and sprayed too just in case. In my room behind some partition board I have a water tank. In summer my room is absolutely boiling hot so I always try to leave a window open even when it rains but I place a towel on the sill to help soak up any rain water so it doesn't do damage, in the winter it's freezing cold.
I've never had this problem before - or at least, I've never noticed this problem before.
Also, I've placed all infected items in bags outsize, should I spray some more raid around the wall and door frame so they don't try coming back inside. Or should I presume that because they are bagged up with food (books and paper)that they'll be as happy as me at an all you can eat chinese buffet?
