String-looking Worms All Over Clothes and House

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This reader found “weird, clear-looking worms” in her home, and attached the photo below in her submission. They are “about a centimeter to two inches long. They look like a clear piece of string, all over my clothes and house. They wiggle around and almost have a dot for a face or head.” To start with, we have to say that we cannot see the worm in the photo. All we see is our reader’s thumb and knee. This is likely because the worms are so thin, and are translucent, but nonetheless, without being able to see the worm in the photo, we cannot provide a confident or accurate identification. Of course, we will still do our best to help our reader identify this creature.

Given its very thin body, the only worm that comes to mind is the horsehair worm. They are parasites, but do not harm humans or pets (unless you have an insect as a pet). They take insects as hosts, and burst forth from their bodies, killing them in the process, when they are fully matured. We will note that there have been a handful of cases of people having horsehair worms inside them, but these have not been infections, but the result of people swallowing insects that are infested with horsehair worms. Now, we highly doubt that the worms our reader found are horsehair worms. This is due to the fact that horsehair worms are not translucent, and they are much longer than the worms our reader found.

Now, while we are not saying that the creatures our reader found are not worms (it is very possible that the “dot” at one end of its body is the head of a worm or larva), we want to offer the possibility that these actually are pieces of string, that are left behind by organisms: maybe caterpillars. Many species of caterpillars are able to produce their own silk, which they use to get down from high places, and eventually to spin their cocoons. Alternatively, maybe these are caterpillars, or some other type of insect larva. There are many species of larvae that are translucent and typically found in the home, like flea larvae or clothing moth larvae. Given that these are found all over our reader’s clothing, perhaps they are clothes moth larvae. That said, none of these species are as thin as string, so we think it’s more likely that this is silk left behind by clothes moth larvae. In any case, we recommend that our reader vacuum her home and launder her clothing, as that should eliminate the infestation. If she is still finding these organisms after doing this, repeat those steps until they are gone.

To conclude, we don’t know what the clear worms are that our reader found. Based on the physical description alone, they sound like some odd mix of horsehair worms and insect larvae that does not exist, though they could also be the silk left behind by clothes moth larvae. Although we were not able to provide a certain identification, we hope that this helps, and we wish our reader the very best.

 

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Summary
String-looking Worms All Over Clothes and House
Article Name
String-looking Worms All Over Clothes and House
Description
This reader found "weird, clear-looking worms" in her home, and attached the photo below in her submission. They are "about a centimeter to two inches long. They look like a clear piece of string, all over my clothes and house. They wiggle around and almost have a dot for a face or head." To start with, we have to say that we cannot see the worm in the photo. All we see is our reader's thumb and knee. This is likely because the worms are so thin, and are translucent, but nonetheless, without being able to see the worm in the photo, we cannot provide a confident or accurate identification. Of course, we will still do our best to help our reader identify this creature.
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Author: Worm Researcher Anton

17 thoughts on “String-looking Worms All Over Clothes and House

  1. I also have this I’ve found that I can keep them off me if I avoid any dusting or watch with a light as I walk through a room they stretch acrross walls and in doorways that’s how they get on you they go to something your going to walk beside or get on the curtains and make it to my bed then I can’t sleep bc I feel them in my blankets if I put tape on the back of my head and anywhere on my body really I catch them I also use borax in my laundry and use pet hair dryer sheets that seems to help some they don’t like the cold my bed room is right above our basement and they are down there bad some of them creep their way to my bed or I feel them start to tighten up on my back they never seem to get on my face tho not for any amount of time anyways I’ll feel them then they are gone sort of just where I can’t see tho there are some that hit u so fast u feel the back of your shirt go out like the winds blowing but your standing in the laundry room where there’s not even a window before when I had hair I would notice me pulling my own hair out like it was attacking me (bc it was) I shaved it all off it’s starting to grow back now but the same things are starting again all though if u pay very close attention it’s not actually your hair it’s something attaching to your hair from on the wall spray your walls with bleach and water and Apple cider vinegar it also helps

  2. Is there any updates on this hair parasite I’m going to be bald soon. No one believes me because they don’t feel it like I do. They see that my skin is extremely red like burning the particles in the air when I vacuum is horrific it sticks to my skin I’m desperate for answers I can’t take it anymore.

    1. I’m infuriated that I’m examined for every bit of about two to five minutes before the judgement sets in and they will continue to hear what I’m telling them about what what these type of in my opinion fungus/parasite/mites are doing to my body and I’m just written off as some brainless junkie that hasn’t sat there for hours upon hours with a jeweler’s loupe and watched clipped scraped scratched tweezedbuffedwithnailbufferand sandpaper to evea straight razor and it has barely kept them at bay. So far I’ve found that tons of teatree, apple vinegar and permethirin cream work the best at keeping an active slowly losing battle. I’m filing my formal complaints against the waste of space high and might judgementtalpeople with PhDs for nothing and I’m going to get paid and I want to start a nonprofit for people like us so we can be heard seen and treated with care dignity and respect. Everyone who has spokeout on here keep fighting I hear and believe.

  3. My boyfriend and I have the same thing exactly what all of u are experiencing I’m afraid this is going to be very bad and wipe out the United States it’s getting in our food and pretty soon we’re all going to starve to death it’s going to get worse every day no one even realizes they have these and it’s going to kill us all I see it everywhere and no one has been able to get rid of them it has ruined our lives and nobody believes us but we know we’re not crazy I wish people would wise up and listen to us about these things god help us all

    1. I agree. We are an experiment in my opinion which means nothing. I read reports of scientists wanting to study parasites and got permission. There are over 300,000 species. I met a lady at job center who has the kind that cuts her. We got ours in muffins at Walmart. Looked liked bloodworms. Months later we had them. Medical staff going to let us die. My little babies. How can you not help precious sweet kids, and say your a Dr. My girls begging them to help. Had proof too. All

    2. If you use a UV light you can see them they’re blue orange green and nobody believes me either they were biting me I thought they were fleas and then I found these little things and they’re everywhere they burrow in your feet they burrow in your nails

  4. Everything mentioned here symptom wise plus a couple other oddities to add. It got so infuriating not being able to get them out of my hair that I shaved my decades worth of growth off, dealing with the other frustration is almost as bad if not worse. I call them wrinkle worms, they somehow branch out into long interconnected nets that are able to climb into the threads of fabric and move around easily going side to side, but forward lengthwise and reverse is slow going and takes a lot more effort, you can hear their little tendrils or feet or whatever moves them dislodging and if the fabric is something thin and not very stretchy it will displace the threads, leaving damaged thread in the trail behind them. I doubt it is all one single organism that can stretch from my neck cuff down into my shoes and socks, but I’m still learning something new nearly every day about the MICroscopic/MACroscopic ALIEN UFOs (unidentified foreign objects). I’ve resorted to wearing adult diapers because they seem like they exit my body from my tailpipe, so catching the gross majority of the hundreds of thousands of them in those and burning them really helps keep them somewhat under control. Lysol laundry sanitizer with borax and laundry detergent with vinegar for fabric softener has been the only combo that gets them out of my clothes, but sometimes it takes 2 or 3 washes, plus I made a powder release device from a pill bottle with tiny holes drilled all over it, filled with diatomaceous earth and tied in a cotton sock that I put in for 15 minutes after the clothes are dry. It’s not enough to get rid of them though, just treating the symptoms, like the chlorthiazene, or whatever diuretic my doctor prescribed for the swelling in my legs and feet, plus gabapentin for the pain that causes. I had a lab test for my stool to see if they could find out what they are, that follow up appointment is a week away still, hopefully it comes back with something conclusive. I’ve been wearing nitrile exam gloves to keep them from transferring onto everything I touch but they get through them pretty often. They can get into paper, plastic and cardboard, I can see them making wrinkles in stuff I touch, they get into my wallet and into the money too, so I’m probably spreading them far and wide by that route. I have seen evidence of them in all sorts of YouTube videos from eBay and Poshmark sellers buying used clothes and not even realizing what is causing all those wrinkles in the pants shirts etcetera they sell. It’s not normal for jeans to come out of the washer and dryer all scrunched up with wrinkles like that, this is spreading like wildfire across the united States and since nobody believes that something like this can exist, it goes widely ignored. I don’t think it’s going to stay unnoticed for much longer once the president gets them in his nice ties and launches an investigation, I’m pretty sure that will happen pretty soon, they are pooling up in my gloves fingers as I type this up, a few drops of tea tree oil and rubbing alcohol seems to knock them back for 5 or 6 hours, but they come right back by the thousands it seems like. I feel like a paranoid crackhead sometimes, it’s driving me insane. I started a YouTube channel about my experiences so far, only have a few videos up so far but there’s more getting uploaded every day. I got a little microscope attachment for my phone and have a bunch of video to edit down and put on there, the channel name is onlyfirekills, so if anyone wants to start a conversation with me about this, leave a comment on any of the videos and I will respond. I don’t think it’s going to be much longer before we get to the bottom of this and figure out what it is and how to treat it. I know one thing for certain, I know what psychosis is and this is not even close, it’s definitely not morgellans either.

  5. Hello all,
    I have been dealing with the exact same thing. Doc says can’t be horsehair worms because they don’t effect humans. I’ve been suffering for over a year. Ppl are starting to think I’m crazy. We need the government or CDC to try to figure out what they are and how to get rid of them. My heart goes out to anyone suffering from this parasitic infestation. I really need hope, dealing with this is extremely overwhelming

  6. I’m dealing with the exact same thing and can not find any professional to help me. I have little tiny white specks on each strand of hair and my hair moves by itself and after pulling out the strands of hair they twist together and move in a freaky way. I also am pulling what looks like pieces or fuzz and other times look like thick pieces of hair out of my arms after I feeling them poking through my shin which hurts. They fuzz and hairs move by themselves and it is truly torture. If anyone has any idea what this is and how to treat it I’d be eternally grateful for your help because nobody believes that what I’m dealing with is real and I’m being told to seek mental health support but nobody will even run any tests to see if this is really just a mental health issue which I know for a fact it’s not.

    1. I have this exact same issue and started to think I was losing it when no one would believe me, I showed my boyfriend and he half believed but when everyone else said I was just looking too hard he then doubted me again. It’s not normal for a strand of hair to move up and down by itself with no breeze, it just doesn’t make sense. I’ve noticed my dogs hair will do the same thing and also has the little white fuzzes that seem to move on their own. If you’ve found any answers I would love to hear them. It seems with the amount of people that actually notice what’s going on, doesn’t logically make sense, we could find the answer if we pool our money together and purchase a lab of some sort (lol).. but really.

      1. Have the same thing little fuzzy clear looking things biting the hell out of me burring in the bottom of my feet if you have a UV light you can see them are the black light or a flashlight that has the UV light on it things been setting me nuts everybody thinks I’m crazy there my nails my toenails at night is the worst

    2. I have this !! Strands of hair moving by itself on my skin. My skin mostly around the lower part of my legs below the knee feels weird like it has a layer of peach fuzz or something around them and that is what it feels like without even touching it. It’s driving me insane. Please help ! Could it be static electricity?

  7. I have these also. They float in the air. A lot of times they are in a “V” shape, similar to the way Bob Ross painting. I also have tiny black worms on my skin. And I have demodex mites. I also have tiny white worms that come out of my eyelids above the lashes. Also have something black on my hair, lost a lot of hair. My poor shih tzu is also extremely itchy. Health care providers don’t see anything. Suggest psychiatrist. Lower extremity and pedal edema. Feet are red, sometimes purple. Other things too. Enough to piss off the pope.

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