wasps
I woke up Sunday morning from evil dreams involving buzzing creatures to find a dozen wasps in our bedroom! Fortunately they were all clustered in the windows at the opposite end of the room; they’re attracted to the sunlight. It turns out that there’s a nest under the floor in our bedroom. The wasps found a home there because the second floor sticks out about 3-feet farther than the first floor, and the overhang is just covered in aluminum, with lots of nice cracks for wasps to crawl through.
We’ve been plagued with the damned things for years. They keep building nests in different parts of the front porch, in places that I can’t easily get to with commercially available tools :). This is the first time they’ve made it into the house, though. Wasps will chew through wood to find nest space (and to build their nests), and with the cold weather outside, they were attracted by the warmth and the light that filters down through the furnace vents from the bedroom.
Since Michaéla is allergic to the beasties, I called a professional (“Bees & Pest Removal”:http://www.yellowpages.ca/business/0%2C1/2720719.html). They came around noon (on Sunday!). We actually had two nests; one “yellowjacket”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjacket and one “umbrella wasp”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes. He blasted both nests with finely powdered “pyrethrin”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrethrin. The powder form easily fills the cavities in the walls and floor, coating the various surfaces (unlike the commercial foams and sprays). The wasps walk through it, tracking it into the nest, killing the whole crowd (up to 10,000 of the critters!) in 24 hours.
It seems to have worked; there’s no more activity outside the house. However, every morning since we’ve gone upstairs to find one or two new wasps that have managed to avoid death. We’re sleeping downstairs for the time being, because the bedroom smells nasty with all of the pesticides floating around, and neither of us wants to be accidentally stung. Monday morning there was a huge wasp (probably a male) on the wall in the bathroom, because the light had been left on overnight; when I turned off the light he eventually moved to the window. Since then I’ve seen either huge wasps or immature workers.
I want my bedroom back… sleeping on the futon is not helping the back injury from last week.
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Eek! I hate wasps, esp when they’re indoors. There’s a wasp nest in the roof above Jeff’s home office.
Were you happy with the company you used? If so, I’m going to call them in the spring (very little activity now with the colder weather).
Granting that spraying a wasp nest isn’t difficult, I was happy with the company. They came on a Sunday (within two hours of my call), the price was reasonable, and the guy who showed up was knowledgable and professional.
They offer a service where they come and spray the outside of your house in the spring to prevent nest formation. It’s a guaranteed service; if wasps form a nest in/on the house they come back and deal with it for free as part of the fee. I think he said it was $165 for the treatment, usually done in April or early May as the weather warms up.