Only the blueberry had issues with mites outdoors. Mites found those plants quite readily.
For whatever reason mites loved that blueberry cut. My buddy that I gave cuts of it to ended up getting mites from bringing in Home Depot plants around his weed plants and those mites completely engulfed those blueberries. Meanwhile the skunk #1 right next to the BB was almost untouched by the mites.
I can empathize with your buddy who got mites off plants from home depot. Usually I grow my veggies from seed but this year I procrastinated too long and had to get bonnie plants. I usually get 3 harvests of basil a year. One in June, August and the last in October.
I noticed a couple bite marks on some basil in June this summer so went to another location. No bite marks or eggs on the stuff there, so I thought it was gonna be good to go.
2 weeks later the plants I got are covered in mites. Chop em down, no biggie. A week later a whole row of my cherry tomato plants are getting mites. Really could have fucked up my whole garden if my rows were a bit closer together.
Basically mites don't give a fuck about whether they're indoors or outdoors. If they find a single plant that they like they're gonna fuck you hard.
Avoid using plants from places like home depot if you're growing at home, especially basil - they're mite magnets.