Has it been at least 30 days since they were around any pet store, other snakes, etc? If not, they may have brought home a single mite that they never noticed, but then when it laid eggs and the eggs hatched....
If that is totally impossible, then it may still be possible the mites were picked up from some outside source. It is a long shot, but maybe your friend happened to be in the grocery store, and brush up against someone who has a mite-infested snake at home, and brought home a mite that way.
I have no idea if any sort of snake mite is native to any parts of the US, so maybe your friend picked them up outdoors somewhere. Even if snake mites are not native, it is possible a population has gotten established in the wild due to someone releasing a mite-infested snake. Even if the snake did not survive, the mites may have.
They can't just magically appear, so they had to have come from somewhere.
Another possibility is that your friend saw bugs, but they aren't actually snake mites. Depending on what sort of bugs they are, there are many possibilities as to where they came from.
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