If you’re of a nervous disposition as it pertains to wasps and hornets and all things that fly and sting (I say this because I am) then you might want to look away from the screen now.
With that mild disclaimer out of the way, let us present to you a scene that one pest controller from the UK described as the most unusual of his 45-year long career.
Now, it’s only natural that at varying points in the year – dependent, of course, upon what part of the globe you call home – you might notice an increase in the amount of insects you’re sharing your living space with. Ants can be a common pain in the backside if they find ways into your house, while fruit flies have proven to be the bane of my life each and every summer since I moved to my current home.
Yet I’m sure you’ll agree that those inconveniences pale in comparison to what one homeowner, living in Winchester, Hampshire, UK had to deal with after failing to realize that a colony of wasps had moved into her home.
Again, you may have some experience with wasp nests depending on where you live. Maybe you found a small nest out on your porch one day, or else in your shed or a tree near your abode. What I’m pretty sure you did not find, however, was that wasps had infiltrated and virtually taken over an entire room of your house.
That was the case for the aforementioned homeowner in Winchester, who called longtime pest controller John Birkett of Longwood Services to her home back in 2014. As per The Independent, the wasps had constructed a huge nest measuring almost a meter (over 3 feet) wide, and 30cm deep.
Birkett told The Independent that he had been asked by the homeowner to salvage salvage a comforter of sentimental value that the wasps had built their home over. Yet when he tried to remove said comforter, “an explosion of wasps came out.”
What’s more, the pest controller estimated the nest to contain around 5,000 wasps!
An old hand when it comes to pest control and removal, it’s safe to say that there’s very little Birkett hasn’t seen while on the job over the years. Yet even he was taken back by the sheer scale of the nest the wasps had built over the course of months.
“I had to think how to deal with this, and I couldn’t leave the door open very much or the wasps would escape into the rest of the house,” he told The Independent.
Armed with pest spray and dressed in protective clothing, Birkett was able to bring the nest under control within an hour. After dismantling the nest, the pest controller found that the insects had chewed through the mattress of the bed they were on, as well as the bed pillars.
“[The nest] was the most wonderful piece of art to be honest with you,” he explained.
“I have mixed feelings about killing the wasps, because you don’t want to kill anything, but you have to do it because they were a pest.”
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