The toxicity of bay leaf (Pimenta racemosa) and palmorasa (Cymbopogon martini) essential oils, and its constituents, and structurally related compounds to adult American house dust mites, Dermatophagoides farinae was examined. Both bay leaf (24 h LC50, 131.95 μg/cm2) and palmorosa (24 h LC50, 116.10 μg/cm2) essential oils were toxic to mites. The most active principles were determined to be citral, methyleugenol, eugenol, and geranyl acetate from both bay leaf and palmorosa oils. Citral (24 h LC50, 1.13 μg/cm2), methyl eugenol (5.78 μg/cm2), eugenol (24 h LC50, 12.52 μg/cm2) and geranyl acetate (24 h LC50, 18.79 μg/cm2) were the most toxic. The toxicity of these compounds was more toxic than that of commercially available acaricides such as, benzylbenzoate (LC50,8.41μg/cm2) and deet (37.67 μg/cm2). Potent toxicity was also observed with nerol, linalool and geraniol (LC50, 21.44–54.61 μg/cm2). These compounds were consistently more toxic in closed versus open containers, indicating that their mode of delivery was largely a result of vapour action. Both bay leaf and palmorosa oil, and their constituents shown their potentials as effective alternatives for harmful synthetic acaricides for the control of Dermatophagoides populations as fumigants in contact and therefore illustrated the need for further study of these essential oils.