All the symtoms that you describe are exactly the same, that I had on my first Worm bin. That was all due to me overfeeding. I have since started again about 3 weeks ago and am only feeding when all of the previous food has gone and only a handfull at a time. Make sure that you mix in some torn up newspaper, about one hand full evey 3-4 handful of food. I was once told on this forum that underfeeding is far more better than overfeeding and if they run out of food they will happly munch on the newpaper. I cannot say to you that starting over will solve your problems it just did for me. But I am only 3-4 weeks into my new one. Also I have only put one handfull of food in upto now and there is still some left.

You can trap the fruit flies with a bowl of water, cider vinegar and liquid soap. It seems normal for the worms to have some uninvited friends in their bin. I have some eventhough my bin is made of plastic, off the floor, and all the air holes in the bin have screens. I'm not asking too many questions, because I fear that the answer is that the sking from the fruit and vegtables that are now in the bin contained the eggs of the additional guests.

So, my husband and I have done a pretty good job of getting the fruit fly pop. down, we made traps using cones with small holes in the bottom pointing into jars with small pieces of banana in the bottoms of the jars (cones taped down). Now, last night we were checking up on our bins and we stirred it up to help aerate it... Oh my GOODNESS we had about a bazillion tiny white worms (pot worms?) EEUUGH!!! I understand that they might be harmless, but there were literally thousands! What in the world do I do? Also, there are mites like nobody's business Should I start over, should I remove the worms and add them to fresh, new bedding,.... what should I do?!?!

Don't worry about the mites and potworms, they are natural in the bins. Perhaps you can adjust the conditions a little to reduce them a bit but you are not going to be able to get rid of them. Often an overabundance of the extra inhabitance of a worm bin are signs of slightly moister and more acidic conditions than you really need for worms. A dusting of pulverised egg shells can help with acidity (most papers are slightly acidic) as well as giving your worms some grit to help them eat. I use a coffee grinder to deal with the egg shells after they are really dry, others just use a rolling pin. Keep the bin from being too wet (you don't need to be misting your bin every time you notice a dry shredd of paper, the food adds lots of moisture and even if the very top layer of bedding drys out, the lower layers are probably more than wet enough. Stick your hand in and check before watering your worms.) Worm bedding only needs be as moist as a well wrung out sponge.

I know the other critters in the bin might seem a little gross to you but you are better off getting over it than tossing the baby out with the bathwater so to say. It is completely normal to have some other critters in the bin. You only need to control the ones that are likely to be a pest directly to you (like the flys) or eat your worms (frogs or centepedes.) Some worry that the other compost critters are competing with the worms, this generally isn't the case and even if it were, it should only be a problem for some one trying to breed worms for sale. Most of the rest of us are after getting rid of waste and/or getting castings. For either of those operations, it doesn't matter if other critters help the worms do their job.