Goodness Gracious God All-Mitey

I am caught up in a major catch 22.  See, our middle bird (I call him the middle bird because we got him second out of the three and because he literally sits in the middle between the other birds) has mites.  We believe they are red mites.  Between the interweb and its wonderful wealth of contradicting information and the clueless girl at the vet's office, we are pretty much on our own trying to figure this one out.  We don't want to use any of the over the counter sprays or "traps" because one site said that they have been known to kill birds.  We were told by our local bird experts that they won't transfer from one bird to another without direct contact between the birds, but the chick at the vet's office said "Yeah, your other birds can probably maybe get it I think."  (She was really decisive <insert eye roll here>.)  He did receive a treatment for mites from our local bird experts while he was "vacationing" at their place over Thanksgiving.  The trouble is that they don't seem to be going away.  We clean the cages, perches and toys but the mites are still on the bird.  If we give the bird a treatment, we can't wait till the mites are all gone before we put him back in the cage.  The mites won't all drop dead at the same time because they didn't get the memo that that would be the most convenient procedure for me.  What to do?  What to do?  I should be thankful.  At least they don't transfer to people . . . that I know of.  <furious paranoid scratching>