“I am getting earthworms in my home”, states this reader in her submission. She attaches a picture of a long, pink organism, though the details of the photo are a bit muddled, so we will just have to take our reader’s word for it that this is an earthworm. “I have not determined the point of entry. I expect it is my back door, although the seal and sweep appear to be okay. I get several in the house after a rain. Help, it is gross to step out of bed next to a worm! Thanks.” First of all, it makes sense that earthworms are coming out in the rain, as that is typical of earthworms, as well as all underground-dwelling organisms. The reason they do this is because, when it rains, their burrows get filled with water, so they must rise to the surface to breathe.

“I found an earthworm in my washing machine”, states this reader in her submission, which does not include a picture of the worm. “It was not in the clothes before I put them in the machine. How could it get in there? And what should I do to get rid of more? Thank you!” To answer our reader’s question in short, earthworms can come up through drains, and that is likely how it ended up in the washing machine. The reason earthworms come up through people’s drains is usually because there is a leak in the pipes somewhere underground. To see if she might be experiencing a leak, our reader can be on the lookout for the following signs: smelly water, foul-tasting water, changes in water pressure, and inconsistencies in water temperature.

“I’ve been noticing these dried worm-like creatures around my wooden floor in my bedroom”, states this reader about the small, brown organism pictured below. “I find them every morning. They are always curled, dried, brownish-looking, and around 1 cm (0.4-inches). Can you please help me identify? Thank you.” From the pictures our reader included, we think she is finding dead earthworms around her bed. It is curious that she is finding these worms here. When earthworms come into people’s homes, they tend to come up through people’s drains, usually as a result of a leak in the drain pipes underground. However, how so many earthworms ended up in our reader’s bedroom is a bit of a mystery. All we can do in this case is guess.

A concerned woman recently wrote to us about her mom’s discovery of worms in her bathroom. The worm in the picture below appears to be pink and brown in color, and is a long, tubular shape.

We think the worms our reader has discovered in her home are probably earthworms. If our reader is concerned about her son’s health or worried that the worm she found in his bed came from him, then we recommend that she take him to the doctor immediately.

One of our readers emailed us about some worms that have been getting into her home during the spring and fall. She said “Every spring and every fall usually after the rain I get a crazy number of earthworms in my house. (I picked up 37 earthworms off my carpet Saturday evening.) I have French doors with rubber seals on the bottom in my basement family room, they aren’t drafty and rarely opened. That is their point of entry. I can’t understand what would drive them to push their way in. Once they get in why they don’t sense it’s a bad idea and leave. They end up like dried spaghetti all over the carpet. I have small children, and the joke around here is get the worm jerky cleaned up before the babies eat it!” We are unsure exactly why the earthworms are coming into the home, but it could be possible that there is a crack in the sealing of the door somewhere. This could possibly be the way that the worms are getting into the basement.