These worms are probably insect larvae. Insects lay their eggs in crops while in the field. It is in all our food, folks! Perhaps some kind of flour or corn meal spilled and they hatched since then. Just clean up all spills.

I was really curious to see what kind
of worms in kitchen...I once had
some cornmeal that was in the
cabinet for a long time, it had
worms in it also, thankfully the
container was well sealed.
Thank goodness that Bus Driver answered
in usual calm manner!

Our family history includes some severe poverty. In truth, eating those larvae will not hurt anyone, especially if they are cooked with the grain product from which they hatched. I know folks- we will not say who- who sifted flour and corn meal to get out the larvae and then used the flour and cornmeal. There was no money to buy replacement flour or meal. We all have eaten some insects unknowingly. I once ate some leftover goodies in the dark and when almost finshed, discovered that it was covered with ants. No ill effects suffered.

worms are best sauteed with some onions however steamed with rice and drizzled with soy sauce is considered a special treat in Thailand. ( no Im not kidding )

Somebody said, cockroaches are actually from the lobster family... shell on the outside, good stuff on the inside.

Think I'll pass on the cockroaches
as a food source...
but if anyone's mouth is watering
over the thought of cockroaches, there
is a pecan tree on the property next to
me that seems to breed xtra lagre ones.
You will have to come & get them yourself
I'm not touching those guys! Some of them
are bigger than I am...just exaggerating a
little bit!

I've had those worms in my house, too. We've since redone our cabinets and opted for plastic containers for food kept in those cabinets. But I would really like to know what they are. Can anyone enlighten us?

(Dare I ask...) Can you post a photo?

I can't right now the problem is for the most part taken care of. I just want to know what they are.

My "worms" sound more like Energy Rater La's.

They liked cornmeal and flour. And chocolate. They seemed to love hot chocolate. They were about a quarter inch. I actually saw more evidence of them, then the critters themselves.

If insect eggs are in/on the food, the tightest container in the world will not prevent them from hatching there. For foods subject to such problems, there are several possible solutions. One is to refrigerate/freeze the food- no hatching in the cold. Another is to heat sufficient to kill the eggs. Here we still dry apples to preserve them- a process probably hundreds of years old. They are peeled, sliced thin for quick drying in the Sun. Insects of all kinds visit during the drying, so we heat the fruit in the oven after it is dry and immediately seal it- no problem with "worms". We almost "toast" it. The heat kills the insect eggs.

I have no expertise whatsoever, but some years ago we found a small worm like you describe in a cupcake that we'd gotten out of our pantry. Needless to say, we threw away the cupcake, thinking we had solved the problem. I'm sure it won't surprise those of you who know what these worms are to find out that we came downstairs several mornings (? I may be off about the time period) later to find the ceiling around the pantry and the pantry itself covered with these small moth-like creatures.

My suggestion would be to clean out the area the best you can!

When my wife and I moved into our house a little over a year ago, there was a problem with small moths in the kitchen. We would be killing 10-15 of them a day. Moths generally start out as worms, so you could have the same problem we had.

Meal moths are small brown-grey moths about the size of an m&m. As their name implies, they lay eggs and grow in grainy/mealy type substances, like flour, cereals, pancake mix, and especially dog and cat food. Within a few days, I did a little research to learn the above info, and we quickly emptied and disinfected the cabinets and put everything that seems vulnerable in plastic air-tite containers.

In the process, we found that the previous owners didn't clean under the lazy-susan in the corner cabinet. There was most of a box of Cheerios spilled under there.

After cleaning and storing everything differently, the problem declined as the number of existing moths died (got squashed), and as no more eggs were laid. Within two months, we were only seeing one moth every few weeks.

After 3 or 4 months, the problem was solved. I think I've killed one or two moths in the past 6-8 months.

-Eastrick

Most of the grain products we buy has a certain allowable percentage of insect parts... allowed by law... like my mom used to say, bugs on lettuce won't kill you, but the insecticides used to kill them might.

I'd double check under the floor (if there's a basement or crawl space) and make sure these bugs are not eating away the wood.

A little boric acid powder under the range will probably take care of any stragglers - just make sure babies/infants don't come in contact with it (if injested it's a poison).

They are called meal moths and the "worms" are the larvae. They remind me of maggots and they gross me out. You can buy "pantry traps" that catch the moths, but as someone said, the larvae hitchike in on your flour and wheat products.
Keep food in tight fitting plastic containers and use pantry moth traps.

To get rid of them in the food (eggs, not larvae, that gets dumped altogether)place your flour and all other items that attract these creepies in the freezer for a few days. Then take out and put in air tight containers.
They do look like maggots and they do freak me out too.

what freaks me out is that we
are still talking about them!

just kidding, I was suprised
to see this post up again.
LOL!

I have the worms, but have not seen a single adult moth. Anyone have an explanation for that? We first saw them last Saturday and thought we'd gotten rid of them, but they were back today. Yuck!

I'm surprised that no one told the original poster NOT to use insecticide in the cabinets...

I never had the worms just little round bugs... All I did was take everything out of the cabinets, washed the inside of the cabinets down with bleach water and tossed out everything that was opened... ( Actually I mixed it all together, added a bit of water, baked it and feed it to the birds... LOL )

Rita

We had the moth/larvae problem last fall - saw one larvae on a container I took out of the cabinet and upon closer inspection found DOZENS of them hanging out in the cabinet where we kept...you guessed it...flour, cornmeal, chocolate, nuts, etc. We were fortunate that we were able to contain the problem pretty easily upon discovery. Once we tossed all "infected" items and thoroughly cleaned the cabinet we put everything in closed containers and haven't had a problem since. And if we ever have a worm problem again we know that it'll be only in that particular plastic container, NOT THE WHOLE CABINET.

Well, I found a new place that these worms can appear--cat litter! We use a cat litter called "Swheat Scoop". It's actually a wonderful product made from wheat; it's biodegradable, unscented, gentle to kitty, no chemicals, no odor. My cats have used this brand for about 6 years. The litter box is in my guest bathroom. One morning, one of the bathroom's walls suddenly had about 30 tiny worms on it. At first I thought they were coming from the drains, or the bathroom's vent, but then I realized they were coming from the open bag of Swheat Scoop kitty litter. So I vacuumed the worms off the wall, vacuumed every inch of the bathroom including the top of the door, medicine cabinets, tile edges, etc. Then I threw the vacuum bag away, and also threw out the kitty litter bag, and the kitty litter in the box--Luckily it was garbage pickup day that day. I then soaked the litter box in a bleach-and-water solution. I haven't seen a worm since. I am a little worried that my cats might have injested a worm somehow, but not sure that would hurt them in any case.

I must say that this is the first time this has happened with the Swheat Scoop--I've probably bought hundreds of bags of the stuff over the years, so I do not believe that worms in kitty litter is a common event. I should probably write the company to let them know. Because this has never happened before, I will continue to buy this product--unless it happens again!

I had the same exact thing, and finally called in the BUG GUY. He said: the people who lived here before had a "rodent problem", and mice carry off pet food and hoard it under the bottom of the cabinets and stoves etc. These bugs feed on it and keep going thru cycles, so that's why you see them in the warm weather. They are carpet beetles. The heck with being pesticide free..I had him treat everthing !

They also show up in bird seed...

Insects have been a part of the human diet throughout time. Tthe Bible actually names four species of locusts that are kosher!

Meal moths love just about any type of grain, whether people food or pet food. Their eggs are likely to come in with any product that isn't well-cooked and well-sealed. All it takes is a spate of warm weather and out they pop. In addition, once you have them, they lay their eggs wherever they can find food or even a space, including grain foods that have been cooked, cardboard boxes, stacks of paper, and even the corners of plastic bags. In a pinch, they'll eat many types of paste as they may contain starch.

Keep in mind that they are entirely natural, and back when all food was natural and relatively unprocessed, they were inevitable. There are even moths that eat other things -- for example the Confused Meal Moth (its name!) that eats nuts.

As disgusting as it is to find them, by and large it means that your food is nutritious and does not contain long-acting pesticides.

I came home and found rather large worms in the kitchen sink (about 2" long). They were off-white, with a little bit of a brown spot at one end. Since they crawled both ways, I'm not sure which end... I'm not sure where they came from. Could they have come up the pipes in the sink? We've had some plumbing problems lately (moved into an old house), so that is a thought. But one of my housemates thought that she saw one fall from the ceiling. Could they be crawling around in the dark space space between the ceiling and the next floor?

We keep all of our grains sealed in glass jars, and these are much too large to be the weavily looking things that turn into moths.

Has anyone experienced this?

Yes! I have...âÂÂ

Hi All,âÂÂ

Well Yes, I had worms in my kitchen, too, creepy ones, in my kitchen and I wanted to âÂÂknow and read about them. Searching the Internet didn't get me anywhere near the same âÂÂkind of worms I saw, but I accidentally glimpsed this page and read all your posts. My âÂÂreply is late, but I have the same problem that "hater of bugs in kitchens" had.âÂÂ

Yesterday I noticed 2 worms in my kitchen, got scared & killed them. But today I went to âÂÂkitchen to suddenly find 4-5 worms crawling in the middle of the kitchen floor at once!!! âÂÂI Went inside a bit to find more and more and more all around especially in the corner. I âÂÂwas completely freaked out, started killing and they were so hard to kill. Please excuse âÂÂme for the ugly description that follows:âÂÂ

âÂÂ1. About 1" long.âÂÂ
âÂÂ2.Beige and/or off-white color.âÂÂ
âÂÂ3.Has one brown end and it is thinner on both ends, fat in the middle according to its âÂÂlength!âÂÂ
âÂÂ4.Curls when beaten and sprays so much liquid, mostly like a thread when smashed.âÂÂ
âÂÂ5.Only on floor, seems like too heavy to crawl the wall or move up.âÂÂ
âÂÂ6.Saw also their larvae: are brown/maroon color and make a tic sound when smashed.âÂÂ

Sorry for this disgusting description, but I'm being precise to get a clue about its name âÂÂand get info and how to completely destroy them!âÂÂ

Knowing that we started smelling a stinking smell in the kitchen like 3 days ago. The âÂÂsmell kept coming and going and sometimes gets stronger... We cleaned everywhere but âÂÂkitchen was clean and made sure no food or anything is dirty or spilled!âÂÂ

Well we started cleaning the kitchen like crazy everywhere and emptying the cabinets âÂÂand spraying pesticide... There was more over 60 worms BUT we finally knew where this âÂÂhell came from!âÂÂ

We then noticed them coming/falling from the kitchen window frame (a gap behind the âÂÂframe)! That window leads to that dark, hollow & deep room inside the building. (I don't âÂÂknow its name) but it's where all exhaust fans of kitchens/bathrooms meet!âÂÂ

We opened that window to find a DEAD PIGEON on the outer window behind the âÂÂwindow's metal netting! SO we knew the source, it came from out, and the rotten smell âÂÂcame from the corpse and worms at once while those worms could reproduce in huge âÂÂnumbers in a short time.âÂÂ

I somehow, believed, that those are corpse worms... Can be anything else? and what's âÂÂtheir name and info?âÂÂ

I hope nobody experiences them... Worms in a house is like a nightmare!!âÂÂ

Taniana

i found worms under my kitchen sink, and what seams to be a pile of brown wood or gravel. i poured some lysol under the sink and one crawled out on the floor , the worm is about an inch long, but where would the pile of earth like stuff come from and what would it be. any information would help.

I found several hollow empty insect casings in my silverware drawer, far from any food. I sucked the drawer clean with my vacuum. Hope I don't see any more! Oh, and I ran all the flatware thru the dishwasher. And I didn't tell my family. I have two vegetarian children who would be horrified.

Taniana, those "corpse worms" were maggots. I procrastinated once about picking up a dead bird in the backyard and it quickly filled with maggots. Made disposal even more disgusting. Taught me thats one thing not to put off. Also, I double plastic bag before throwing in garbage or they'll be crawling all over the can. Sandy

Sooo, does anyway have a picture of thoes worms? Cause I do have some in my house, I just don't know where they come from... And I am not a messy person, I often clean every cabinet, I vaccume EVERY PLACE of my house, and I still find some of them in my house, like under my bed, under my couch, and EVEN IN MY FOOD, in hermetic plastic containers... But still, they come back year after year. And not only in that particuler house, cause I've been having these worms in every place I lived. So how do I get rid of them? This is SO disgusting, I can't even stand the idea of thinking they could come in my bed... YUCK. Please, help me!

Just finished cleaning out a large infestation--I first noticed it by the little worms crawling up the walls and on the ceiling!.. First found that a bag of nuts was infested. Cleaned out that drawer and threw out all cornmeal, flour etc. in the kitchen (which worked when I had a moth infestation once before). Then the moths started. Dozens every evening. Found them in another pantry drawer where I keep tea & coffee--not seen before--but it seemed that it was the boxes, not the tea itself!! So cleaned again, threw out all boxes, absolutely everything in glass jars or ziplocks. But still they came!! Guess where I found them next? In my cookbooks!!!

I've got them too. And posted a few pictures (see link)

Anything I can do? Anything I can put out to keep them from coming back?

Here is a link that might be useful: Here's the link

We are currently trying to rid these pesky creatures from my grandmothers pantry. We have had them for decades. They are in everythin. In rice, foil, waxpaper, nut, cereal , flour, everything but canned food items. We are an obsesivley clean family but yet we cannot get rid of these annoying creatures?, bugs?, worms?, whatever they are. We have cleaned with vinegar, bleach, disinfectant, sprayed poison, and they continue to come back. We air tight stuff. throw everything out ( trash it all). clean replace with new food and air tight ness conainers, and yup they are back. they shed light brown skin?. If they are the larva fom moths why in all these decades do we not have one moth. Not one. Anyone have any more info? Please help I'm tired of eating so much protein.

I think mine came from dry cat food. They lived under the kitchen island. I had to move that from time to time to eliminate the little buggers.

Now that we're down to one cat, the worm problem has vanished.

The worms were annoying...to say the least.

I went through the horror of meal bugs some 10 years ago!
I never found a single worm but suddenly had a mess of little round beetles on my living-room floor. I had never seen such a bug and captured a couple in a jar to bring down to the local bug terminators (as they called themselves!) for identification. They told me they were the adult beetles from the meal larvae most commonly found in grains and such. Usually you find the worms and get rid of them before you'd ever see an adult!
Well, you can bet I bleached and scrubbed every room in the house, sprayed with some kinda stuff the terminators claimed was safe for pets and dumped every ounce of food I had on the shelves, without finding a single bug or worm in the whole kitchen. That night I sit on the couch and there they are again, walking over the floor bold as brass. So, out with the vac, mop, and I hit the floor again, hard!
Now I'm burnt! Dirty, tired and aching! So I go into the bath, start to run a tub, dig for some soothing salts, bubbles and good ole Aveeno bath oatmeal....
Need I say more? The source!!! The whole box was filled to the brim with bugs. Out to the trash, one more scrub and no more mealy bugs of any kind ever again!

I had worms in my kitchen. It started with making an instant soup thing when I poured the powder pack on the boiling water all kinds of writhing worms were in it! Lost my appetite instantly. Then a little later my sister pointed to my shirt I had one on my shirt crawling towards my face... I can still see that wiggling nasty monster when I close my eyes. I didn't realize that it was in fact an all out invasion. My sister and I got real evil on the nasty gnarly creepy as ever wormy things. I thought I found the source, an old container of oatmeal, no behind that the cornmeal bag was full of holes they ate their way out! BUT then we found more. We thought we found the source two bags of lentils overflowing with theme in the back of the cupboard. No flour had leaked out of an old bag and it was on the second shelf too. We scrubbed all the corners with NON TOXIC soaps (YOU PEOPLE THAT USE HARSH CHEMICALS AND INSECTISIDES IN YOUR KITCHEN ARE INSANE... SO gross, begging for cancer and health problems as well, at least the nasties are organic). So we threw out all mealy products (all worm filled of course) I thought the ordeal was over a week later I found a bag of pancake mix in another cupboard on the other side of the kitchen, i shuddered because I knew it was going to be pulsating with worms... and it was. Little strong vaccum strapped to my side I got into every crevice of the kitchen. And wish me luck. It might be over. Lesson learned. Airtight containers for flour products (avoid buying flour products and all other super processed powdered substances). Eat fresh vegetables and things that don't need to sit in your cupboard behaving as a breeding ground for nasty little worm monsters. To illustrate the nasties: {{!gwi}}

I have that problem. It makes sense that the eggs are already in the flour/pasta. I have everything sealed, and I just found one in a sealed Hamburger Helper bag. Those bags are heat sealed, there is no way a worm could crawl in it. Totaly blew my mind and makes me feel helpless. I have pasta in an air tight plastic container. YIP...found one in the bottom of that too. My sister and I were going to make macaroni. We opened the box and dumped the contents in the water. We both freaked out when we saw a couple worms moving around. I called the kraft hotline and they said to pay attention to the Due dates of pasta products. Maybe I can just keep my pasta in the freezer until I need to take some out?

I have read all postings thus far.... however, I've found these worms; not in the kitchen, but in the bedroom (on the sheets no less (now how gross is that) and in the living room. Frankly I'm stumped. Does anyone have any advice for me?

We set off some "bug bombs" to get rid of spiders, and the next day I found several of these small, legged brown worms, mostly in the kitchen, but some others throughout the house. I am thinking of dumping all boxed dry goods out and starting over! Any ideas would help.

I just moved into a condo and found dozens of these under the stove, cleaned the room, now finding them crawling acoss my bathroom floors, now even in my bedrooms- about 6 or 7 a day crawling in my white carpet, now even baby ones. I am so clean and neat and always put all my food in the fridge. are these possibly coming from inside the walls, under the baseboards and from ajoining floors or condos? I have the condo board coming into spray, I am sick i will find them in my bed, when i squash them - they seem to be full of blood.
Does anyone know the proper name and picture of these - so i can tell the exterminator?

thanks J

Wow i use sweat scoop too... I was wondering where they were coming from! Just started keeping a cat in my apartment and never saw them... now i am... thanks for this post!

This was crawling (or whatever you want to call it) across my living room floor this morning! Not quite sure how it got in here!...

did you ever find out where they coming from and did you ever find one again because i just saw one just like that in my apartment yesterday.. im thinking it came from outside cuz of the rain n what not

I have small white worms in my kitchen on the floor only. They come out from under the baseboards and from different sources. They resemble maggots but also wood worms. Can't find the source. No worms on exterior of walls. They usually come out every summer in July or August but they are back now! What are they and how do I get rid of them?!