Fleas in garden (pics for ID)

randomguy

Hi there,

After 3 months of waking up at night with repeated really itchy bites, having lower legs and waist coming up in loads of big hives/bites, ruling out hives, trying to rule out bed bugs, and now my wife also being bitten, and both of us getting worse, I did an experiment yesterday and think I caught the culprit.

Short version - what is the attached and could it be biting me and my family???

Long version: I wore boots and jeans for cutting the lawn yesterday, and left them (and socks) overnight on a large white table. When I took them away this morning, the following (see pics) was left behind wandering around.

The last pic is for scale.

For context, we bought the house a year ago in Dublin inner suburbs. We have no pets. Small child. The garden backs on to a field which people use to walk their dogs every day, cats roam in, and foxes were in last summer. When I cut the lawn, I often walk into this field to drop the cuttings. Early this morning with the change in time I spotted a local cat using one of my flower beds as a toilet, and burying it.

Originally I was convinced we had bed bugs, and guessed my wife and toddler were just not being bitten/not reacting. But my wife has over the last month started to be bitten. A pharmacist rules out scabies. I do most of the gardening and outdoor work, but in the last months she was spending more time in garden and occasionally in field.

For the moment I just want to see if I can identify the culprit (the bites are itchy enough to wake me up during the night and are slowly driving me mad). Could this be it, and if so what is it? I'll come back for solutions later!

Alun

Definitely not fleas, look like some kind of mite to me.

Spook_ie

randomguy wrote: »

Hi there,

After 3 months of waking up at night with repeated really itchy bites, having lower legs and waist coming up in loads of big hives/bites, ruling out hives, trying to rule out bed bugs, and now my wife also being bitten, and both of us getting worse, I did an experiment yesterday and think I caught the culprit.

Short version - what is the attached and could it be biting me and my family???

Long version: I wore boots and jeans for cutting the lawn yesterday, and left them (and socks) overnight on a large white table. When I took them away this morning, the following (see pics) was left behind wandering around.

The last pic is for scale.

For context, we bought the house a year ago in Dublin inner suburbs. We have no pets. Small child. The garden backs on to a field which people use to walk their dogs every day, cats roam in, and foxes were in last summer. When I cut the lawn, I often walk into this field to drop the cuttings. Early this morning with the change in time I spotted a local cat using one of my flower beds as a toilet, and burying it.

Originally I was convinced we had bed bugs, and guessed my wife and toddler were just not being bitten/not reacting. But my wife has over the last month started to be bitten. A pharmacist rules out scabies. I do most of the gardening and outdoor work, but in the last months she was spending more time in garden and occasionally in field.

For the moment I just want to see if I can identify the culprit (the bites are itchy enough to wake me up during the night and are slowly driving me mad). Could this be it, and if so what is it? I'll come back for solutions later!

Maybe these or a close relative
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/red-spider-mites-bite-humans-c5c86b4992e54380&ved=2ahUKEwj-yZWbrazhAhVQRhUIHXtDBAIQwaICMAx6BAgMEC8&usg=AOvVaw2o_-hM6skJfTk5eLtxVsKM

Harry Palmr

Pix are not great but it looks like a spider mite of some sort.

Vicarious Function

This is is so amazing! Thanks for the info, guys. Something else to think about when I venture into the garden! :P

I have not experienced any bites to date. I'm thinking -

Maybe I have none of these bugs - so far.
Maybe I might never have these bugs.
Or maybe I do have them and just have thick skin
Or maybe since I have a bird feeder and the birds go around the ground keeping it clean, they pick up the bugs while doing their cleaning job.

LOL!

MickeyShtyles

randomguy wrote: »

Hi there,

After 3 months of waking up at night with repeated really itchy bites, having lower legs and waist coming up in loads of big hives/bites, ruling out hives, trying to rule out bed bugs, and now my wife also being bitten, and both of us getting worse, I did an experiment yesterday and think I caught the culprit.

Short version - what is the attached and could it be biting me and my family???

Long version: I wore boots and jeans for cutting the lawn yesterday, and left them (and socks) overnight on a large white table. When I took them away this morning, the following (see pics) was left behind wandering around.

The last pic is for scale.

For context, we bought the house a year ago in Dublin inner suburbs. We have no pets. Small child. The garden backs on to a field which people use to walk their dogs every day, cats roam in, and foxes were in last summer. When I cut the lawn, I often walk into this field to drop the cuttings. Early this morning with the change in time I spotted a local cat using one of my flower beds as a toilet, and burying it.

Originally I was convinced we had bed bugs, and guessed my wife and toddler were just not being bitten/not reacting. But my wife has over the last month started to be bitten. A pharmacist rules out scabies. I do most of the gardening and outdoor work, but in the last months she was spending more time in garden and occasionally in field.

For the moment I just want to see if I can identify the culprit (the bites are itchy enough to wake me up during the night and are slowly driving me mad). Could this be it, and if so what is it? I'll come back for solutions later!

They look like ticks.
More commonly found in wet ground though.

RebelButtMunch

Try lifting your sheets and have a really good close look around the mattress. Sounds like something is in the beds. It might take a while to find it. Or maybe Hoover the mattres with nylon over the tube see if you'd can catch it

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

That's a mite from the garden. It is not biting anybody and is most certainly not in the bedroom.


It sounds like bed bugs.

New Home

They do look like bed bugs all right - see here. (I'm not embedding in case people are squeamish).

Bed bugs bites are really distinctive, too. See this.

Happy4all

Bed bug. When you last change the linen?

RebelButtMunch

Happy4all wrote: »

Bed bug. When you last change the linen?

I'd hazard a guess they are gonna persist in the mattress.

delboythedub

There is a Dublin company who deep clean mattress " Irish Bed Hygiene Co. They collect and drop back and more economical to do several mattress at a time.

Car99

Call Rentokil they'll check it out.

randomguy

Thanks everyone for the advice. Sorry to hear that the garden mite was an innocent mite wrongly accused of a crime it didn't commit! I've given it a posthumous pardon.

When I thought it might be bedbugs a few months ago I had done a search, using a torch etc, and the only insect I uncovered was this one - see pic attached (apologies for quality).
Really tiny, alive, walking around on a bag under the bed. I moved bags and suitcases from under bed as a result, but no sign of droppings, nest, discarded moulting etc, and the bites started again a few weeks later which is why I thought it was from the garden. (The itch usually starts at night, but I'd done some googling and learnt that that does not always mean the bites are at night too).

Rentakil it is!

fryup

retokil be expensive, surely there's an over the counter remedy/powder you can get?