What a summer.
August has been an... interesting month, not counting the humidity.
It started off with my ear infection (which actually started some time during the second-to-last week of July), which gradually got better and finally went away. It also had coupled itself with an eye infection which I had to deal with an eye infection which I had to deal with at the same time.
However, it ended perhaps a few days before I was scheduled to go off on a canoeing-camping trip (more on that later), and hardly had the time to recover, nevermind time to do exercises to be in shape.
It doesn't end there; during this time I'd noticed some tiny insects - feel free to make your guess, but I've stumped everyone so far - around my apartment. I originally didn't think they were a big deal, but I eventually noticed that regardless of what I did, they stuck around.
I'd done a last ditch effort at the last minute before the camping trip, and even that hadn't done much. And when I came back... I realised that they'd originated from my mother's house. They were on every floor; they'd gone unnoticed because these insects (or mites, or pseudo-lice, or whatever they are) are light-shy, activity-shy and seem to only eat... ...well, I'm not sure what.
The day I realised this I informed my mother about it, but she wasn't terribly worried, especially when I mentioned that I believed they were book lice, and that one source said that one of the things they feed on is mould. *sigh* Mentioning that one of the ones in the basement was a tad larger than I'd seen so far had no effect.
I wasn't convinced these bugs were benign due to their quantity; My argument was that it is rare to see, for example, large amounts of spiders in a human living area and there was a fair quantity of these bugs around. At this point you're likely wondering why I didn't contact exterminators or even the land-lord; I'm not sure. Part of it was procrastination, part of it was that I didn't even know what kind of bug it was, and part of it was that I thought I could get rid of them myself.
Oddly enough, I seem to have done just that; I do not see them in my apartment anywhere anymore, so one or more of cleaning, vacuuming, powder insecticide, and compressed "air" did the trick in getting rid of them. I'm thinking that it was a combination of the last two, because a day after using the compressed "air" they were all over, a fair bit bolder than they'd been before... ...and then the next day, they seemed to have altogether vanished save one or two.
I have yet to scour the apartment for them, however, to make sure they simply haven't just located another source of food (something I could not doubt considering my roommates (several reasons)), but I will do this soon as I'd like to capture at least one and bring it somewhere for identification (Any suggestions? The apartment's office staff will not recognise them, I'm sure, given my past... experience with them.).
As for what I suspect them to be, I believe they are book lice (in which "lice" appears to be a misnomer).
Update: Actually, they're still around. Guess they were napping.