A reader noticed bubbles on the ceiling of a room of her house. Some of these bubbles have “red things” coming from them:

Above this ceiling is a crawl space/attic area. She showed the photos to her mold guy and her pest control guy. The mold guy confirmed that it is not mold, and the pest control guy claimed that he has never seen anything like this. So are these little “red things” worms? If so, where are they coming from?

What an interesting phenomenon! We aren’t experts on why this bubbling happens to ceilings, but we believe it could be due to the paint getting wet. If it has to do with moisture, we think the “red things” could definitely be worms. To be more specific, we think they might be bloodworms, also known as midge fly larvae.

After mating, female midge flies lay their eggs in stagnant water. If conditions are favorable, the eggs will hatch in 2 or 3 days, and the larvae will begin feeding. Bloodworms are detritivores, which means they eat dead plant and animal matter. Therefore, they thrive in polluted waters that are full of organic debris for the larvae to feed on. Although these larvae are a little shocking to look at (the bright red coloring is caused by the hemoglobin in their blood) they are harmless. Bloodworms are not known to bite humans or transmit any diseases.

We have heard from readers who have found bloodworms in various locations (their swimming pools, watering troughs, toilets, and other places where water stagnates), but finding the larvae coming from a ceiling is a first! We don’t know the best way to handle this situation. Perhaps scraping off all of the old paint and adding a new layer of fresh paint.

To wrap up, we think our reader might have bloodworms coming from the bubbles in her ceiling. Have any of our readers dealt with a similar situation? If so, please comment on this post!

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