“It is currently winter here in Adelaide, Australia and we are now finding worms climbing up the two walls and dying,” states this reader, referring to the brick walls in the pictures below that flank her swimming pool. Our reader wonders how she can prevent the worms from climbing over the planter box and up the walls.

As the worms die, they end up falling into our reader’s pool, “and end up in piles at the bottom when the filter is on.” Our reader says that this “is just gross”, which we can agree with. It is our reader’s first winter at this home after finishing renovations on it, and coming back to a pool full of dead worms must not have been the nicest welcome. The planter bed our reader refers to is also visible in our reader’s photo, though we cannot make out any worms. This is definitely because the photos are taken much too far away from the walls and planter bed to see them. They would have to be the size of snakes for them to be visible.

Now, given that we do not know what the worms look like, and not much context is given as to their behavior, it is very difficult for us to make any claims about these worms and what our reader can do to prevent these specific worms from wanting to climb up her walls. Normally, to prevent worms from climbing up walls, we recommend removing organic debris that is resting right near the wall, but in this case that is impossible, as the planter box is purposefully right by the wall. Nonetheless, if our reader can remove any excess leaf litter or piles of rocks/pebbles that may be resting up against the walls, we recommend that she do so.

Additionally, she could spray her plants with a solution of water and soap, as this will make the surface of the leaves slippery, which will make it more difficult for the worms to climb them. Similarly, she can spray the walls with the same solution. If it works for the plants, we do not see why it would not work on the walls.

In addition to wondering how she can prevent the worms from getting to the walls, our reader also wonders how she can remove the worms without removing the white paint. We are not quite sure what the context of this question is. In particular, we do not see how removing worms off a wall would remove the paint, unless the worms are so stuck on tight that this is a genuine risk. We suggest simply removing the worms by hand that she finds roaming on the walls and taking them elsewhere, away from her property. As we do not know the species of the worms, we do not know how much of a threat they pose (in any capacity), so we will not recommend that our reader uses any insecticidal sprays (not that we usually recommend such means).

Likewise, as we do not know the species, we recommend that our reader use caution if and when handling the worms, especially if they have bristles; using gardening gloves and/or a dustpan to move the worms might be a good idea.

To conclude, we do not know what worms our reader is dealing with, but we hope that we nonetheless answered her questions to a satisfactory degree. We wish her the very best!

Summary

Article Name

What To Do About Worms Climbing Up Your Pool Walls

Description

"It is currently winter here in Adelaide, Australia and we are now finding worms climbing up the two walls and dying," states this reader, referring to the brick walls in the pictures below that flank her swimming pool. Our reader wonders how she can prevent the worms from climbing over the planter box and up the walls.

Author

Worm Researcher Anton