You are being bitten at night, the bites itch far more than they should, and nothing about it makes sense. Nobody else in the house is getting them the same way. You have washed everything. On a windowsill or a white ceiling there are specks that seem to be moving.
If that is your week, you almost certainly have birds. Not in your bedroom, above it.
Exclusive Eco treats bird lice and bird mites in homes and buildings across George, Wilderness, Sedgefield, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Mossel Bay and the wider Garden Route, and closes off the roosting and nesting spaces that caused it.
What are bird lice?
Two different creatures get called bird lice, and telling them apart explains why people spray for weeks and still get bitten.
True bird lice are insects that live on the bird. They feed on feather and skin debris, they are fussy about which bird they will live on, and they cannot live on a person. If one reaches you it will chew at your skin, achieve nothing, and die.
Bird mites are the ones actually biting you. They are tiny relatives of ticks and spiders, they feed on blood, and they live in and around the nest rather than on the bird. When the nest stops supplying blood they go looking, and what they find is you.
For getting rid of them the distinction changes little, because both come from the same place. It matters for one reason: the problem is not on you, it is in the building.
What do bird lice look like?
Smaller than you expect. A millimetre at most and usually well under, so what you see is a moving speck rather than an animal. Pale or straw coloured when hungry, red to almost black after feeding, because what you are looking at is your own blood.
People almost always spot them on something light: a windowsill, a white ceiling, a cornice, a light fitting, pale bedding. And they come from above, through ceilings, cornices, downlighters and the gap where a ceiling meets a beam.
If you can see them at all, there are a great many you cannot.
Where do bird lice come from?
A nest, and almost always one you cannot see.
Here the culprits are pigeons, sparrows and starlings, and which one you have decides where the nest is. Pigeons want a sheltered ledge, a chimney, a parapet or the space under solar panels, which on a modern house is the single most attractive roosting spot on the roof. Sparrows get into the eaves and the beams. European Starlings are the worst of them for this, because they nest inside the ceiling rather than on the outside of the building, and most starling nests we take out are carrying parasites.
Our bird control and proofing page covers all six birds that cause building problems here and how to tell which one you have.
Why they appeared now, when the birds have been there for years
While the nest is occupied the mites have everything they need and they stay in it. The birds may have been on your roof for seasons without you feeling a thing.
Then the nest empties. Usually that is simply the young leaving once they can fly, and the adults having no more reason to sit. It can also be the weather taking the nest apart, or somebody clearing it out. Either way the blood supply is gone, and a very large number of hungry mites goes looking for the next one, along beams and cornices, down through the ceiling, around downlighters and pipe openings, into the rooms below.
So the biting usually starts after the bird problem seems to have solved itself. That timing is the most misleading thing about this pest, and it is why people look everywhere except upwards. It is also why these calls come in waves, once nesting is over rather than while it is running.
It also explains the worst version of it, which is a nest being pulled out or the birds chased off with nothing treated. That does not end an infestation, it releases it into the house. If a nest is coming out, the treatment and the proofing that stops the next bird moving in belong in the same job.
Can bird lice live on humans?
No, and it is worth saying plainly, because it is what people are most frightened of.
Bird mites cannot complete their life cycle on a person. They do not burrow into skin, they do not breed on you, and they do not pass from one person to another. They bite while searching for a bird, and they cannot make a living from us.
What they do cause is small red itchy bumps, often in groups, usually on the arms, chest, shoulders and legs, and worst at night or early morning. Some people get a crawling sensation with it. It is miserable and it is not dangerous.
It also explains why washing everything and treating yourself buys a day of relief and then it starts again. None of that is wrong, it is just not aimed at the source.
Can bird lice live in your bed?
They end up in the bed because they are dropping into it, not because they live there. You notice them there for the obvious reason that you lie still in the dark for eight hours in the room they are dropping into.
Strip it and wash everything hot. It is worth doing and it will help for a night or two. The bed is not the infestation. The ceiling above it is.
Does vinegar kill bird mites? What kills them instantly?
Vinegar, surgical spirits, tea tree oil, a supermarket insect spray: all of these kill the mites they physically land on. That is a real effect, and it is why the internet is full of people saying it worked.
It does not end the infestation, for two reasons.
The population is not where you are spraying. For every mite in your bedroom there is a far larger number in the nest material and around the roost, coming through in waves. You are killing the scouts.
They can wait you out. A roost can stay infested for months after the birds have gone, so neither starving them out nor spraying a skirting board every night is a plan.
The right product in the right place does work. The right place is the roost and the void, not your bedroom floor. Deal with the source and the biting stops in days rather than months.
How we get rid of bird lice
Three things, in this order, and skipping any one of them is why it comes back.
We find the source. The inspection happens on the building, not in the lounge. Roof voids, eaves, gutters, chimneys, parapets, beams and the space under solar panels are where these nests are, and the room you are bitten in is often not below the nest, only below where they came through. We identify the bird while we are up there, because that decides what follows.
We remove it and we treat. Nesting material and droppings come out, and the roost and the void are treated. The order matters. Pulling an infested nest out of a ceiling before it is treated is how a roof problem becomes a bedroom problem.
Where the mites have already come down into the rooms below, treating those rooms is quoted separately as an additional service. It is not always needed. Once the source is gone the ones that came through have nothing to feed on and no way to breed. If your rooms are badly affected we will tell you and price it.
We close the space. This decides whether you ever phone anybody about it again. Clean a ceiling out and leave the way in open, and another bird takes the same spot next season. Our bird proofing work closes the openings the birds are using, and it is quoted with the cleaning so you can see the two parts separately.
We will also tell you if what you have is not this. Bird mites are not the only thing that bites people indoors.
What does bird lice treatment cost?
We quote per building, because it depends on where the nest is, how much material has to come out, and how much has to be closed off afterwards. Treating the rooms below is priced separately, as an additional service, and only where it is actually needed. Send photographs of anything you have seen and tell us which rooms are affected. The survey is free and there is no obligation to proceed.
Where we work
Bird lice and bird mite treatment across George, Wilderness, Sedgefield, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Mossel Bay, Hartenbos, Great Brak River, Klein Brak River, Vleesbaai, Gouritzmond, Oudtshoorn and the wider Garden Route and Klein Karoo.
The birds themselves
Treating the parasites without dealing with the birds is half a job. Our main bird control and pigeon proofing page covers which bird causes which problem, what gets fitted where, why bird proofing so often fails, and the guarantee on the work.
If the nest turned out to be under your panels, solar panel bird proofing is a job of its own and has its own page.
Get a free quote
Send photographs and your location on WhatsApp and we will give you a provisional figure, then a free survey with no obligation.
