A reader recently sent us a photo of a short, fat brown worm via the All About Worms Facebook page. He asked one simple question: “what kind of worm is this?” Given some of the complex and convoluted questions we receive, we welcomed this beautifully straightforward message. We are tasked with one question – what is the short, fat brown worm that our reader found? – and were sent an excellent photo of the worm under consideration, making our job as easy as it could be.

We received an email a while back from a reader who is finding brown worms under her couch. The reader described the worms as brown and hard, and also mentioned that they have many legs. The reader asked several questions, but she was primarily concerned with determining what the worms are (hint: they aren’t worms, but larvae), and she was also keen to get rid of them. She was so alarmed by the presence of the brown, hard creatures under her couch, in fact, that she is considering getting new carpet and furniture, and ended her email with an emphatic cry for help. So, what are the brown worms (or actually larvae) under the furniture, and how can she get rid of them?

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.

In a fairly long email composed of short, descriptive sentences that were each on their own line, which made the message look like a poem, we were asked about the long, skinny, brown worms that come out after it rains. The reader noted several things about the worms, most notably that they are, once more, long, skinny, and brown, and also that the worms dry out on the sidewalk after the rain evaporates. So, we have a basic “what are the worms that come out after its rain” sort of question, which we have addressed in different contexts a couple of times before. The answer to the reader’s precise question is extremely simple – the long, skinny, brown worms are almost certainly just earthworms – but her email suggests other dimensions of interest, so we’ll discuss why earthworms come out after it rains, and why they often end up dead on the sidewalk when the precipitation and its aftermath have passed.

We received a question a while ago from a reader about brown worms that turn into beetles. She is finding the brown worms all over her home, particularly in dark places (like under furniture), and she is concerned because she has three children. We are basically certain our reader found carpet beetle larvae, which means the brown worms under her furniture are not in fact worms, but rather a type of insect larvae. First we will explain why we believe the brown “worms” are carpet beetle larvae, and then we will move on to the more pressing question of how to get rid of carpet beetle larvae.

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 recently moved to southern Florida and has since been “invaded with a reddish brown worm.” The worms are about an inch (2.5 centimeters) long and coil up when touched. The reader is finding the worm not only on his lanai, but occasionally in his house as well. (A lanai is a furnished veranda that often serves as the living room of a house, so we’re not sure what is considered the lanai and what is considered the house.) The reader is clearly frustrated with the worms because they won’t go away, even after he uses insecticides. So, he is wondering what the reddish brown worms are and how he can get rid of them.

A reader wrote to us about some tiny brown worms she has been finding in various places around her house, including her laundry basket, her bathroom, and her kitchen counter. When the reader says “tiny,” she means it, as she only estimates the worms to be about a quarter of an inch (or six millimeters) in length. The reader says that the worms look like the “ones found in old baking flour,” although she herself hasn’t found them in baking flour. She is wondering what the tiny brown worms are, and she is also wondering how she can get rid of them.

A reader wrote to us about some dark brown worms he is finding in his garage under rugs. The worms are about one inch long and are described by the reader as “crunchy when stepped on.” The reader has found several of the brown worms, so he is keen to get rid of them. And so the question before us is this: what are these dark brown, one-inch long worms, and how do you get rid of them?

A reader sent us a question about three-inch brown worms that he is finding on his kitchen floor, as well as occasionally in his living room and bathroom. The worms (if they even are worms – they might be centipedes) move “very fast like a snake.” In fact, even when they aren’t moving quickly, the way they move still resembles a snake. So we are dealing with brown worms (or “brownish” worms, as the reader has it) that are three inches long and move like snakes, often quite quickly. To this description the reader adds two notes: first, he only finds the worms or centipedes or whatever they are one at a time. Second, and rather gruesomely, the creatures only die when they are burned in a fire. (Unfortunately, one is all but forced to imagine the other methods that failed.) In light of all this information, what is our reader finding?

A little while ago we received a question from a reader about some worms she is finding in a pond. The pond worms are white and brown, although the proportion of each color varies from worm to worm; some worms are only slightly brown, with white serving as the worm’s main color, whereas others are almost entirely brown. (In any case, this is what we gathered. The email is a little hard to decipher; fractions like 3/4 are invoked to describe the worm’s colors, which is helpful, but it’s not always clear what color the fractions are referring to.) The reader also mentioned that the worms are small, in the 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch (6-12 mm) range. So, our reader is dealing with some small brown and white worms, and the question of course is: what are they?