A reader wrote to us recently about the hundreds of skinny worms that appear on her back patio after it rains. The worms are a little over an inch long (about three centimeters), and they are coming from planter boxes nearby. The worms not only spread out over the tiles on her patio, but also on the walls and doors of her house. Once the rain stops and the worms dry out, they produce an unpleasant odor, so the reader is left to clean up a ton of dead worms that smell bad. She is understandably keen to remedy this problem, and wants to know what to do to discourage the worms from invading her terrace. Interestingly, the reader has a front patio that is unaffected by the problem, even though planter boxes are near this patio as well. What can our reader do to get rid of the hundreds of skinny worms that are overwhelming her patio after it rains?

A reader wrote to us about a brown worm on his patio that was crawling toward a leaky water pipe. The reader was quite taken by the worm, and said “it was amazing!” The worm is about four inches (10 centimeters) long, and it had “titticles that parted.” While we find the word “titticles” to be excellent, not least because of is sexually confused connotations, we presume our reader meant tentacles. What could this brown worm with tentacles on the patio have been?