Lets talk about provent a mite

[OhhWatALoser]

aka PAM (not the cooking spray) http://pro-products.com/provent-a-mite/

So this all starts about a week after my last reptile show. I find mites on a couple of snakes in bottom tubs. My best guess is they were on me, as none of the snakes I took to the show had them, and my one new snake didn't have them. Doesn't matter, I got mites and have to take care of them. I had about half a can of PAM left over from a while ago, used that to treat the affected tubs and the ones next to them. Alrite problem solved. A few days later, not only did it not kill anything, I had 8 tubs infected and the original ones had an explosion of mites. So this is something I suspected before, but wasn't sure. Does PAM have a short shelf life? If i had to guess id say my can is less than a year old.

So I order some PAM, but in the meantime I figure I'd try the all so famous facebook mite fix. I always see RID spoken so highly of as the cheap PAM alternative. On the can the ingredients are exactly the same as PAM, only difference seems to be one less oz per can. While I was there I also saw an even cheaper walgreen generic spray so I picked up a can of each to see if it held up to all the hype. I mean the reason I bought PAM is because that's what everyone recommended here and it worked when I used it.

So I treat 15 tubs with these 2 cans. The reason I only treat 15 tubs is out of that 5 oz can, I only got 8 tubs worth from RID and 7 tubs worth from the generic. 2 cans wasn't even enough to do all 21 tubs I wanted to. this was highly disappointing as I know I can do all 21 in the stack with 1 6 oz can of PAM. a couple for days of waiting for pam to show up, again mites are just exploding, all I can do is soak my snakes to drown the ones that fall off. it was quite obvious neither spray was working. Once PAM did show up, I treat all 21 tubs with a single can and still felt like I could've done 1 or 2 more. Next day, not a single mite is seen alive. Finally got it under control.

So what I find most interesting is the facebook claims of PAM being a rip off as it is so expensive. Well lets do the math assuming the cans do work as intended. I would of needed 3 cans of the RID at $7.50 to do 21 tubs. that $22.50. One can of PAM is $18. Now depending where you can get it, you may or may not have to pay for shipping, I get that. But even if the effectiveness is the same It is still cheaper to buy PAM. I am also severely doubting the effectiveness of RID. Now if my shelf life theory is right, maybe the RID sat too long also and that's why it didn't work. However it still doesn't make sense economically.

so thoughts?