One of our readers found some dead creatures in a carpet she recently bought. We believe these are carpet beetle larvae, which are known as household pests. We recommend she clean the carpet before installing it just in case there are living carpet beetle larvae in it that could spread to other parts of her home!

We think this might be a carpet beetle larva. Since our reader found this worm in her carpet, this seems especially appropriate.

A reader recently sent a picture to us of two worm-like creatures that she found in her carpet in her home. Because of the two pairs of legs per body segment, it is very possible that these creatures are millipedes.

A reader wrote to us the other day about “carpet worms, carpet beetles, and possibly a moth worm” that she has seen moving in her carpet. The worms and beetles, which we’ll define more precisely below, are also eating holes in her shirt and “causing” lint to build up. The infestation has gotten so bad that the reader feel pricks when she walks around the carpet. For obvious reasons, she wants to get of the worms and beetles she is finding, and she wrote to us for help.

We received a very strange question recently from a reader who asked if worms – or a “regular long brown earth worm,” to use the reader’s exact phrasing – can “come up through carpet with the thick backing.” The reader is asking because she has renters who claim that worms are “coming through the carpet,” and the reader wanted to know if this is possible. So, the question before us is something like this: do earthworms ever make their way into a home by coming through the carpet?

A reader in Indiana recently sent us a question about an extremely tiny, skinny brown worm that her neighbor found in her carpet. (That is, the small worm was found in the carpet of our reader’s neighbor’s house, and our reader is evidently writing to us on her neighbor’s behalf.) The reader described what she found as a “worm like thing,” so it isn’t clear if we are in fact dealing with tiny brown worm in the carpet at all, although she did say it looks a bit like a horsehair worm. What kind of tiny, skinny brown worms can be found in the carpet, or is our reader’s neighbor not dealing with a worm at all?