# What looks like sawdust and likes the metallic surface of a fridge?



## Vys (Aug 16, 2007)

Helo.

Just wondering if anyone might have an idea of what has since at least a day back been haunting the upper surface of my house's combined freezer/fridge.

These things are small like the mites that sometimes infest to warm/wet terrariums, but they tend to thinly cover the entire upper surface of the fridge and in places (seams) collect into static piles that look like sawdust.

We keep boxes of cereal up there, and catfood(dryfood, for my roaches). The catfood had (up until yesterday) been there for at least six months. The things were crawling all over it, and to a lesser degree on/ in all cereal containers/boxes.

Upon discovery, I removed all boxes and traces of food from the top of the fridge, then wiped it with some chlorine. Well, this morning the little itters were back. Illogical.

They haven't gone into the fridge, but they're on the top, sides of top, backside (backside is just a metal plate,,) and inside the freezer (dead piles of sawdust)

I would post some pictures to illustrate, but there was a logistics problem involved that prevented that.


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## Galapoheros (Aug 16, 2007)

Sounds like grain mites.  Allot of threads about mites/grain mites on the AB.  Here's another site.


http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2152.html


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## sidguppy (Aug 16, 2007)

these are "flourmites" or grainmites; a mite species that is wellcapable of climbing glass and other smooth surfaces and lives off anything that is made from grain.

cereal counts as such. it's a pest and one of the scourges for bakeries. once I had them in my Tenebrio-breeding colony; I had to destroy that colony to keep them from taking over the entire classroom.

you have to find the source; maybe there's a dubia colony with too many uneaten pieces of bread etc.

and you probably have to toss out ALL the bread/cereal/flour-related products in your house, clean everything EXTREMELY well and live off soup or outdoordinners for a while.

a well intensive housecleaning is in order now too; cause a few bread- or pizzacrumbs in the carpet is a perfect survival kit for them.....


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## Vys (Aug 16, 2007)

Thanks for your replies.

Well, they appeared very suddenly a day or so ago.
Found most in the dry catfood box on top of the freezer, so I assume they were summoned by it (or any of the cereal anyway).

The three roach colonies I keep are kept fairly dry (because I do know about mites in those circumstances), and they don't appear infested (and are on another floor ). I suppose one of them could have been the origin - but I haven't actually touched the catfood in around 3 weeks or more, and they would have had to travelled some sort of reverse route then anyway as I bring catfood up.

What does 'source' matter anyway? It's not as if that's the central brain that will make the whole colony collapse if defeated, I guess (even though that would've been dang practical  )

Hmm, sounds fun to live on soup canisters for a year  Normal roach-enclosure mites (dust mites, mostly, I think) tend to die the second they dry out; and while I've experienced those both with spiders, roaches, and hermit crabs - they've never infested anything else but the terrarium. These suckers multiply like an explosion even if they are on the bare metal of a fridge and you've just poured chlorine on them.


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