A reader recently sent in a query about finding live, big worms in her small, ground-floor apartment in Florida, as well as very small and thin worms that follow them inside. The smaller worms are apparently about an inch in length, “a drop thicker than a needle”, and tannish in color.

A reader wrote to us a little while ago about a small brown worm that she found in her house. She said she “could find this worm under my bed sheets and floor,” and we aren’t sure is we should take this as an expression of the mere possibility that the worm could be found on the bed sheets and floor, as her use of the subjunctive mood seems to suggest, or if the reader did in fact find the worm under her bed sheets and then on the floor. In any case, she sent a picture of the “worm” in question, which actually looks like a larva, not a worm. More specifically, she appears to have found a carpet beetle larva, which the gods have fated us to write about without end. Below we explain why we think our reader found a carpet beetle larva.

We received a question from a reader recently who has been finding red worms in his sink drain. The reader describes his situation well, so we’ll quote (with a few minor edits) his entire email, after which we’ll get on to the task of identifying the worms in the drain: “These worms keep entering through the sink hole of my bathroom. I just pour water and wash them down the drain again. But still they manage to come up again. They crawl really slowly and they move away from the sink hole. I am scared that they might be harmful because their color is very red…..like blood sucking parasites! Please help. Let me know what these are and how you can get rid of them. Even if they aren’t harmful, I’ll be happy not to see them again.”

A few days ago we received a question from a reader who found what appears to be some kind of small, skinny, brown worm on his floor, or what looks like his floor. The reader didn’t give us much (or really any) information about the worm, but he did send a picture. The reader is wondering what the little brown worm is, and he is also wondering how he can get rid of “them” (implying that the pictured worm isn’t the only one he found).

A reader wrote to us with a question about a few small white worms she found in her bathroom. Actually, no question was explicitly asked, but she clearly wants to know what she found, also wants to get rid of the worms in her bathroom. She reports that the worms “creep me out,” and also that she has children and doesn’t want the worms in her home, like basically every person who ever has or will exist. What kind of small white worms did our reader find in her bathroom, and how might she get rid of them?

We recently received a very short email that asked us if we could identify a short, thin white worm. More precisely, the worm is about one quarter (1/4) to one half (1/2) of an inch long, or about a half to full centimeter, and it is as thin as pencil led. This is all the information we received, and in fact we weren’t even sent a specific question – the description of the worm’s body was only followed by a question mark (or actually three in this case). We presume the reader wanted to know what he found (assuming he even found something), so we’ll focus on identification: what kind of white worms are as thin as pencil lead?

A reader wrote to us recently about some small black worms that he is finding on the carpet under his desk. The black worms are only about an eighth of an inch long and they move quickly. In general, the reader isn’t especially concerned about the small black worms, as he doesn’t “mind them in particular if they were under the bed or something.” However, their presence under his desk is a problem because he is normally barefoot, and he is (understandably) “grossed out by the idea of them being there.” The reader is wondering what the small black worms under his desk are, and he is also wondering if they are dangerous and how he can get rid of them.

A reader from Texas recently wrote to us about some small black worms he is finding in his recreational vehicle (“RV”), and sent us a picture of one that is on his floor. On some days, he finds as many as six or seven of the black worms (which can also be “charcoal grey” worms) in his RV, but he has also gone up to a week without finding any worms. After struggling to discern where the worms are coming from, he finally concluded that they are entering the RV through the heat vents. The reader lives in his RV, and so was naturally wondering what he is finding, and he also wanted to know how to get rid of the black worms that have taken up residence in his RV.

We recently received a message from a reader via the All About Worms Facebook page about some very small white worms he has been finding in his bed. (He actually sent us 12 messages about the extremely small white worms, leading us to think he is sending messages via the Facebook chat window, a default option that can be changed, for what it is worth.) The worms stand up vertically and look like the “those caterpillar[s] you see every year by the thousands that come out of the trees here in Tennessee,” by which he might mean they look like inchworms, the larval form of geometer moths. In all the messages he sent, which included a number of pictures, he never actually asked us to identify the small white worms in the bed. Rather, he was primarily concerned with his and his family’s safely. He feared that the worms might burrow into their skin. So, our principal task is to address whether these exceedingly small white worms are harmful or dangerous, but we will also add a couple of notes about identification as we go along.

A reader wrote to us earlier today about some small larvae with black heads that she has found on three occasions in her home. The reader referred to the creatures she found as “worms,” but they are definitely larvae, so we will proceed with our identification efforts accordingly. The reader describes the larvae as entirely black, and while this is definitely true of the heads of the larvae, the rest of their bodies appear to be more of a grayish color. (That’s why we simply called them “small dark larvae” in the title.) What are these small dark larvae with black heads?

A reader wrote to us via the All About Worms Facebook page to ask us about some small red worms that she recently found on her bedroom wall. The worms appear to have a cocoon or shell, or perhaps they just shed their skin (the reader mentioned all three as possibilities). The worms also seem to be legless and hairless. The reader reports that she has seen the small red worms before when she was younger; they were generally under stuffed animals that were on the floor, and again she noted that they seemed to leave behind their molted skin. In light of their repeated appearance in her life, our reader wants to know what the small red worms are, if they are even worms at all.

A reader wrote to us the other day about “little worms all over [her] laundry room,” which is near a closet that holds the trash. The small, brown worms are “all over the walls, the floor, the trash/closet, washer/dryer, even hanging from the ceiling from single thread webs.” However, they are only in this one area of the house, so apparently the worms originated in this area and haven’t spread. The reader is wondering what the brown worms are, why they are in her house, and how to get rid of them.

A reader wrote to us a week or so ago about some 1/4-inch (quarter-inch) black worms she is finding in the carpet of her house. In addition to being in her carpet, the small black worms are also on the baseboards around her house, which isn’t surprising, given that baseboards often line carpet. The reader says the black worms in her carpet shy away from vacuum cleaners, and also that they seem to prefer darkness over light. What are these small black worms in the carpet of our reader’s home, and how can she prevent these worms from infesting her carpet?

A reader wrote to us recently to ask “what kind of worm falls from the sky?” (The reader actually added three question marks, perhaps indicating his level of concern.) It turns out that the worms, which are small and white, aren’t actually falling from the sky, but rather from an oak tree (or so we surmise – more on this in a moment). The small white worms fall onto our reader’s car and truck, which are parked under an oak tree. The reader was first of all concerned with identifying what the small white worms on the oak tree are, but he was also keen to know where they are coming from. We address both concerns below.

A reader recently wrote to us about, as the title of this article suggests, a small, brown worm with stripes on the counter. (The worm was on the bathroom counter, more precisely.) The reader sent pictures of the brown striped worm and was merely wondering what it is. She was very matter of fact in her email, not seeming particularly alarmed by the small worm, nor did she ask how to get rid of it, so we presume she is dealing with an isolated incident and not a recurring problem. (She did add the word “blah” after her short email, so she wasn’t altogether happy with finding the worm either.) So, we have a simple question before us: what is the small, brown, striped worm on the bathroom counter that our reader is finding.

A reader wrote to us recently about the small, black worms she is finding in and around her garage door at night. She claims to be finding “hundreds” of worms, so she is clearly having some trouble with these creatures. In addition to the adjectives small and black, the reader describes the worms as “round,” by which we think she means their bodies are cylindrical, or perhaps the creatures are curled up. If the entire bodies of the worms are round, one probably wouldn’t suspect them to be worms. As a matter of fact, though, our reader probably isn’t finding worms; rather, she seems to be finding millipedes, a common household pest. So, the small, black “worms” our reader is finding are in fact small, black millipedes, or so we posit.

A reader wrote to us a few days ago about some small worms (or “little tiny worms,” to use the reader’s exact phrasing) she is finding by her toilet. The small worms are black, or at least they appear to be black or some other dark color. (See the picture below.) The reader has found dozens of the worms by her toilet, so she clearly has an issue that needs to be addressed, and she is eager for information about the creatures she is finding. What are the small, black worms by the toilet our reader is finding, and what must she know about them?

A reader asked us a little while ago about some small black worms he is finding on his property. The reader has an air conditioner that drips water onto his carport, which has a crack in it, and small black worms are crawling out of this crack to get to the water. The reader describes the worms as “solid black,” so evidently they don’t have stripes or any other distinguishing body marking. What are these small black worms in the water on the carport?

A while back, we received a short email from a reader about worms in beds that are small, striped, and black. (The worms are small, striped, and black, not the beds.) We say the email was merely “about” the tiny worms because it didn’t ask any sort of question – it simply offered a description (“very small” worms that are “black and stripes,” to use the reader’s unique phrasing) and nothing else. The reader also didn’t specify if she is finding the worms in her bed; indeed, she didn’t even indicate if she is finding them at all. She might just be curious about small, black worms with stripes in general. We presume the reader is hoping for us to identify the worm, so below we explore a few different possibilities.

A reader wrote to us about some small gold worms in Florida that reportedly bite. (More precisely, they are “a hard gold color,” although we’re not sure what the adjective “hard” adds to the color description.) The reader didn’t indicate she had found any of the worms (perhaps explaining why no picture of the worms was submitted), nor did she mention anything about the worms causing her distress or irritation. Indeed, her question was a mere sentence long, consisting only of a straightforward plea for information stripped of any other context. So, what are the small gold worms in Florida that bite?