A Mitey Film

I knew nothing about house dust-mites on the day I went filming. As far as I knew, I was simply making a film about a potential breakthrough treatment for asthma on behalf of the Wellcome Trust’s Technology Transfer division. Several hours later, I had the footage I needed and more than a generous helping of knowledge about these tiny creatures. Let me be clear, any living thing that has managed to survive the bombardment of weather, mutations and tectonic shifts the planet can throw at them deserves a helping of respect. But it is simply not possible to think about dust-mites without screwing up the face in disgust. I console myself with the knowledge that even David Attenborough dislikes certain animals (rats).

Watching the precautions Clive Robinson and David Garrod’s team had to take in order to work with the dust mites really brought home how problematic these animals are. One scene, that made the cutting-room floor, featured a scientist placing mites onto a dish for later observation – a simple enough task until one appreciates this dish is in an airtight container and all manipulations must be made by thrusting one’s hands into large, thick rubber appendages. The scientist involved made it look easy, performing a rubber-armed ballet as she thrust her arms in and out of the various holes to perform her manipulations.

That these creatures are one of the principal causes of allergic asthma will be, for many, reason enough to dislike them. But the mite itself is not the allergen, rather it’s the creature’s faeces. With mites being less than half a millimetre in size, their waste is miniscule, small enough to be carried on drafts in the air and into our lungs. As the name suggests, their preferred habitat is urban housing – that’s your house and mine. Disgusting. And their food? Our skin. Please! It seems around 500 mites can be living in every gram of dust in our warm, moist, comfy houses and let’s not even start with the thousands thought to inhabit a typical bed and mattress. Seriously, I thought ‘don’t let the bed bugs bite’ was just an expression; now I have to contend with the thought that the place one sleeps is a seething mass of these breeding critters.