Posted on 06/08/2008 9:58:13 AM PDT by billorites
There was a warning issued Thursday to homeowners after a Long Island woman's home was infested with "blood-sucking" parasites. It wasn't bed bugs that caused the problem, but bird mites.
"I was hysterical crying last night," said Crystal Shea, the daughter of the bird mite victim. "You know, I feel terrible for her. How do you watch your mom come out in a hazmat suit?"
The emotional daughter of the bird mite victim shared ominous looking photos of her mother being suited up in bio containment gear by emergency medical technicians responding to her S.O.S. from her Levittown home. They stripped her of her clothing, shoes, carted off her mattress, confiscated the wild bird nest from a bathroom vent and transported the patient to the quarantine unit at Nassau University Medical Center.
CBS 2 HD spoke by phone with patient Nina Bradica from her hospital bed in the isolation unit.
"My whole shower was covered with them," said Bradica, 45. "I didn't even know they were there at first, I was drying myself with my towel in the bathroom. That's how they got on me."
One of Bradica's doctors told CBS 2 HD bird mites can be a very severe problem.
"They can be a nuisance and some people have been infected for years with these bird mites and have had difficulty eradicating them," said Dr. Kenneth Steier.
Added Dr. Shadab Ahmed of Nassau Medical Center, "They can stick to the body. They are extremely tiny. I just sent three to be tested to the parasitology lab for identification."
Doctors say there is absolutely no public health hazard. Mites can't feed off human skin and will eventually drop off, but until then …
"They were biting her all night long," Shea said. "They were coming out of her ears, her nose, some other places."
Bradica tried to describe her discomfort.
"They do go inside you. They go in your nose. They go in your ears. They go in your mouth."
The victim's irate family is blaming her landlord, who drove off without commenting on why the home had not been fumigated.
Bradica told CBS 2 HD she is covered with welts and red bumps and wonders if her home will ever be livable again.
Bird mites usually infest bedrooms and bathrooms, but can quickly spread to the entire house.
Sounds like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Why didn’t she take better care of her mom?
OMG!
Horrors!! I had a bird’s nest up over my front door back in Illinois, and I thought it was the neatest thing! One day I took a step ladder out and got up there to look and see how many eggs there were... and I saw that the whole thing was crawling with these mites. I was freaked. I got down quick and never went near it again.
The woman is 45. How much care does she need?
I feel exactly the same way about democrat party parasites.
Fumigate these vermin away!
OMG!!! How the heck do you know if you have them? How do they infest? Gee’s, the least they can do is give you some warning signs to look for and how to prevent it. Yes, I live on Long Island!!!
How did she get them in the first place???
Dammit, I think I’m having psychosomatic itching.
DDT cures bug problems.
Oh you are right. I had it in my head she was an old lady in a crummy apt. Sorry.
:)
Why the woman didn’t fumigate it herself is beyond me. I cannot understand why people don’t take matters into their own hands when their is an emergency. Why wait for the landlord to act? Do it yourself and them send a bill.
I think I’m feeling the same way too.
I think I’m going to have to put some lotion on. I’d rather be suffering from psychosomatic euphoria? Why does that never happen I ask. lol
I once slept in a lodge where I later found out a birds nest was in a nook on the outside wall. Well, the bird had recently died, and all of the bird’s mites were homeless. I itched, I scratched, and I mixed malathion with my shampoo and laundry soap.
“How do they infest? “
ALWAYS knock down bird nests anywhere on or adjacent to your house!!!
When I was a kid on a ranch in San Diego county, we got some swallows in our rafters. We thought that was so cute.
Next thing you know we had bed bugs. My older brother started knocking down the mud nests, and the critters covered the whole side of the house.
‘Course, back then, we just got out the DDT and got rid of them.
bttt
Ok, not much creeps me out but this is REALLY creeping me out! ack!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.