“Translucent, striped, microscopic, hairlike worms in Miami Beach apartment water faucets”, writes this reader in her submission regarding the array of organisms pictured below. “I had previously found this after bathing my dog with Septol. This nightmare never ends. Now I noticed they come from our faucets. What is going on? I’m so scared. Thanks for your help.” The first thing we want to bring attention to is our use of the phrase “array of organisms”; we do think our reader is actually dealing with multiple different organisms that are not necessarily related. For example, the yellowing, segmented worm-like creature pictured below looks to us like a fly larva (maggot). People can commonly get these during the summer as flies enter the home and lay eggs in one’s organic compost. The best way to tackle these is to consistently throw out compost and larvae in trash cans outside, keep one’s kitchen clean, and maybe buy fly traps if the issue is bad enough.

“I’m in need of your assistance with the identification of the suspected worm in the short, attached video,” writes Helena in her submission regarding the super thin, black, worm-like creature pictured below. “More information will gladly be provided if needed, and upon your request. Your help is greatly appreciated! As the video shows, it was on me. I’m not suggesting it came from me. When I removed it, the worm had fallen to the floor and I couldn’t locate it to take any other photo or video of it. I’d just never seen anything like it and thought you might be able to identify it as such. If so I’d greatly appreciate your knowledge of what type of worm it could be or who might know, if not yourselves.”

“Can you help tell us what this is?” asks this reader in her submission regarding the thin, black worms pictured below. “And if it is common, or coming from one of us? And any possible ways of stopping worms in the toilet? My mum bleaches frequently and is super clean.” Despite our reader’s short submission, there are a lot of questions to be answered here. Firstly, we can definitely help our reader in identifying the worm-like creature pictured below. We think this is possibly a horsehair worm. These worms are somewhat common, though they are more common in nature than in people’s homes. They would not be coming from our reader or her mother, despite being parasites.

“What is this?” is all Shawna asks in her submission regarding the thin, translucent object pictured below. Suffice to say the photo is quite blurry: all we can tell about the object Shawna is asking about is that it seems to be clear, long, and hair-thin. The only worm that comes to mind is the horsehair worms, though they are not colorless like this one: they tend to be black or white in color. Without any context, it will also be impossible for us to identify the worm based on information that could have given away its identity, such as the location in which it was found, or if it was found on or near a pet’s food or bedding.

“I have been struggling with these white, lightweight, hair-like worms in my hair and all over my body,” says this reader located in Northwest Washington, “out in the rural farm lands near the Canadian border.” Although our reader does not ask any specific questions in her submission, we will provide some resources she can consult if she worries for her health as a result of these worms.

“I found this in my sink,” states this reader in her submission concerning the objects that look like bunches of wet hair photographed below. “Can you identify it?” she asks.

“What kind of worm is this?” asks this reader in Dallas Texas regarding the long, thin objects pictured below. At a glance, the photo seems to display hair-like strands of matter that lay scattered around a big twig.

“Doctors won’t believe me here in the UK”, states this reader concerning the organisms that have been plaguing her for three years. She asks that we identify the organisms for her, and shares her story of her struggles with these creatures.

“I really hope you can help us” pleads this reader in Oklahoma, who is concerned about the “long, very thin, clear worm things” she has been finding in her clothes. “I don’t think that they are parasitic, but they are seriously horrible.” Upon moving in to a new place, our reader discovered these organisms on her clothing. After drying her clothes, the spots in which the worms were found were still damp. “I have tried everything I could think of to get them out of our clothes, but nothing has helped,” she reports. At this point, all of her clothes are infested, and she is looking for help from us.

A woman in Sydney, Australia recently moved house and has been finding all sorts of bugs and creatures in her home, including the organism pictured below. She describes it as a “little, black hairlike thing” and she has found it all over her house; she wonders what it might be and seeks our answers.

Recently we received a query about a “bug/parasite/worm” that one of our readers in Iowa captured, who went on to elaborate that there are “actually […] two different ones.” The first photograph looks to be some kind of pink creature, with long appendages that snake out from the main body, and the second image showcases what looks to be a tangle of dark brown/black colored worms.

A reader from Texas wrote to us recently about some “hairlike worms” he is finding on the sidewalk after it rains. The hairlike worms (or hair-like worms – both are correct) are six inches to nine inches in length, which is long given their incredibly thin bodies. The reader wants to know what the hairlike worms are, and we are virtually certain we know the answer: horsehair worms. We suppose we could stop here, having unraveled the hairlike worm mystery, but below we’ll provide some information about and pictures of horsehair worms to round out the article.