If you’ve heard strange noises coming from your home and can’t place the source of the sound, chances are it could be woodworm. But that leads us to the question…
What does a woodworm sound like? A woodworm sounds like scraping, crunching, and clicking noises. Unsurprisingly, these noises originate from woodwork in your home, whether it’s the furniture or the structure itself.
In this article, we’ll dig a bit deeper into the sounds woodworms make along with how to identify these noises compared to other household pests.
Does Woodworm Make Noise?
Woodworm makes noise when it’s eating wood in your home. This is what makes the scraping sounds. However, woodworms also make clicking sounds in the run up to their mating season.
Generally, you’ll only hear these noises when it’s quiet because they’re not very loud. However, if you’ve noticed them at night or on a quiet day, it possibly means you’ve got a woodworm infestation.
You’ll hear the eating noises during the spring and summer as the adult woodworm and larvae move about in the woodwork feeding themselves.
You’ll only hear the clicking sounds during mating season, which is in the summer.
You can check out this video for a clear example of what woodworm sounds like around the home.
Can You Hear Woodworm in Furniture?
You can hear woodworm in furniture or in your home’s structure. It’ll generally be easier to hear them in furniture because you’ll be closer to it than, say, the beams holding your roof up.
Regardless of where the wood is, the conditions that make it suitable for woodworm also make it good at projecting woodworm sound.
Why Can You Hear Woodworm?
Seasoned wood (such as that used for furniture) is very dry, meaning it resonates sound easily. As such, even quiet woodworm noises can sound loud, which explains why you can hear them at night.
But you’ll still only be able to hear the chewing noises with specialist equipment, such as that used in the video above. The noise you’re more likely to hear is clicking, which is characteristic of one type of woodworm: the Deathwatch Beetle.
Use this treatment to destroy woodworm and keep your home quiet:
What Does Deathwatch Beetle Sound Like?
The Deathwatch Beetle makes a clicking or tapping noise when it’s attracting a mate. The noise is made by males to alert females in the area to their presence.
Perhaps the easiest comparison is to the ticking noise made by a clock.
This is why it’s called the Deathwatch Beetle. In folklore, the ticking sound signalled that someone in the house was about to die, as it was thought to be the sound of their life clock ticking down.
Of course, woodworm was far more common back then, so it must have been a constant anxiety about people in the house dying!
Of the 4 species of woodworm common in the UK, the Deathwatch Beetle is the only one you’ll be able to hear with the naked ear. The other 3 don’t make mating noises, and, as mentioned, you can’t really hear the chewing sounds without specialist equipment.
Telling Woodworm Apart from Other Pests
As you can imagine, there are some clear signs of a woodworm infestation. However, in this article, we’re only focusing on woodworm noise. So how do you tell woodworm apart from other household pests just by sound?
Well, the most obvious place to start is with the fact that you generally can’t hear woodworm. The exception is the Deathwatch Beetle, and you can only hear that at certain times of the year.
Arguably, the only other pest we must consider here is mice. There are few other household pests that you’ll need to worry about, or indeed that make any noise in your home.
The sound of mice scurrying around your home isn’t drastically different to the noise woodworms make. However, the sound of mice running is quicker, less regular, and can be heard all year round.
Mice eating also makes a similar sound to woodworm. But again, it happens all year rather than just in the warmer months. Plus, you’ll only hear woodworm eating in very rare circumstances, whereas mice are pretty loud and love to eat.
There’s also the issue of damage and the pests’ leavings. Mice are far more obvious than woodworm because you’ll find them throughout your home rather than just in the woodwork.
In short, if you can hear pests in your home, the chances are much higher that it’s mice. You’ll want to call a professional exterminator either way, but it makes sense to treat it as a mouse problem until you know otherwise.
Does Woodworm Make a Noise
The takeaway here is that woodworms definitely do make noise, but you can’t hear it most of the time. If you can, it’s probably a sign that you’ve got a pretty bad infestation!
There are clearer signs of a woodworm problem that are obvious before woodworm sound becomes an issue. Assume the noises are something else, but don’t completely overlook the fact that it could be coming from woodworm.
