Abstract House dust mites, cats and dogs are amongst the most frequent sources of indoor allergens in Eu-rope. The fact that the allergens of house dust mites cause allergic disease through inhalation of house dust was discovered in 1964. The diagno-sis of mite allergy is regularly complicated by its often nonspecific symptoms, which frequently develop insidiously and by no means always in-clude attacks of paroxysmal sneezing and itching. Antibody-based immunological detection meth-ods can be used to measure exposure to mite all-ergens. The structure and function of more than 20 allergens from Dermatophagoides pteronyssi-nus and D. farinae are known. Other relevant in-door allergens come from mammals kept in households. Here again, allergens have been de-scribed and diagnostic as well as exposure-mea-surement tools are available. It is important to re-member indoor pests and other „unwelcome lodgers“ as a possible cause in the case of unex-plained symptoms experienced indoors. This short overview summarizes the current key points on the subject of „mites and other indoor allergens“. The present article provides an over-view of several articles published in a special issue of the German journal Allergologie [Febru-ary 2015; 38(2)] on the subject of „Mites and other indoor allergens