As I said, just not my day. I bagged the poop from my one snake, and picked him up to look him quickly over. That's when I was shocked to see he had mites. And they were crawling in his tub. I then checked every other animal I had, some which had no sign of mites, several who had one or two, and then another who had quite a few.

I am mortified that this happened, and it seemed to happen so suddenly. I have never seen anything so mich as hinting at this while cleaning the tubs prior. And suddenly they seem to be everywhere. Tomorrow is going to be a long day and hunting down POM.

I have no idea how this happened. I did recently add an animal about 2 weeks ago without quarantining her (I know what a stupid thing to do that was, I certainly know better than that, and am embarrassed to say it happened), but I just checked her all over, as well as her tub, and she is one of the few animals who is squeaky clean, not a single sign of a mite anywhere in any crevice on her, her hides, or her tub.

Both animals most heavily infested have been here for months, one at 224 grams and one at over 1200. I don't understand if the new animal were the source, how she would not have a single mite crawling on her. I don't understand it.

My point in posting this is to ask how could this have happened? Everyone has been fine, no signs of mites anywhere. I would accept that this is a consequence of my stupid decision, except for the fact that this new girl is as clean as a whistle. That doesn't make that decision any less stupid, and I won't waste time making excuses for myself, but if it isn't that, then I would really like to know where this could have possibly come from so that I have something to look out for in the future aside from obsessively quarantining.

I'm absolutely mortified and so sad for the animals.
I will do all I can to set this right as quickly as I can, and as I said, I could accept that this was the result of my own stupidity. But in case it wasn't that, I would like to know what else I did in order to prevent this from ever happening again.

Also, do I need to worry about these infesting our house and humans? I'm finding mixed information.