My older sister has a lot of snakes, and she uses just newspaper because newspaper won't carry mites. I recommend that, paper towels, or coconut fiber (that's what I use). If you get anything like coconut fiber, make sure you buy it in the brick form. It can be a chore to break up (add water and do your best to break it into pieces, don't be afraid to get messy) but the bricks are a lot les likely to contain mites/mite eggs etc. that being said. There was a seed of an unknown plant in this last brick of CF I used for bedding and it's been growing like crazy, I have no clue what kind of plant it is but I'm not gonna take it out yet lol. You can also bake bedding in an oven to kill any possible mites, I haven't done that yet because I've been lucky. My sister only had a mite problem when she used the bags of already broken up CF. I just recommend being careful about what you buy and how it's packaged because mites are a pain in both the butt, and for your snake. Best of luck to you.