Hi,
We are just finishing the inside of our home and I see wasps flying into the peak of our home between the brick and the facia.
The wasp nest is not visible from the outside. The attic is blown with insulation and I have not been up there yet.
I am thinking of setting traps outside to draw them out and see how many I get, before spraying the outside entrance to the house. I do not want them finding new exits into the interior of the home. Any ideas?
jI went up on a ladder with a couple of cans of sprayed foam insulation and sealed their entry into the wall cavity where they try to nest. No matter how careful when applying the foam the stuff will expand from under the trim boards and look like a real sloppy caulk job. Being as careful as possible when spraying of course I just let the foam expand and dry and then went back up the ladder with a spackle knife and a wire brush. I ran the edge of the spackle knife up under the bottom edge of the trim boards to slice the expanded foam and the wire brush to clean up the excess giving a clean finished seal. Some of the foams will probably take paint but when I sealed mine -- more than five years ago in a northern climate -- I just left well enough alone as I got tired of climbing up and down the ladder and had already painted the year before :-)
I maintain and keep things clean by spraying any attempt to nest on window mullions and other places they will try to nest closer to the ground once you seal off their efforts to nest up high which they prefer. I use the Raid product for spray.
Use a small-caliber rifle with a scope. Get 'em one at a time as they exit.
-- (||) Nehmo (||)
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Jeff and Jennifer Cook wrote:
Funny, I have exactly the same problem, right down to the blown insulation and having not been up there yet. I've done a fair bit of research on the critters recently.
Common wasps, yellow jackets, are attracted to meat or sugar depending on what stage their larvae is in. There is a lot of info on making traps with 2L pop bottles, dish soap, fruit juice, etc. Another trap involves tying a fish over a bucket of soapy water, you can also buy traps from hardware stores. Trapping is a waste of time though, unless you just want to keep numbers down for an outdoor event or something. If you really want them gone you need to get rid of the nest. However, only the queen will survive the winter and she won't return to that nest, so you could also just wait them out.
DON'T SEAL THEM OUT OF THEIR NEST. They will find a way through anything you put in their path, if you seal their entrance they may just chew through your walls and enter your house, it happens. You cannot make them leave their nest, the only solution is either kill them all or remove the nest.
Personally I won't use chemicals on my home, so I'm going to locate the nest. At night, while wearing a lot of clothes, welding gloves, hats, duct tape, etc, I'm going to climb up there and stuff the nest ina pillow case, which I'll throw in a bucket of water.
Incidentally baking soda will make stings feel better. Also, while a .22 would be a bad idea I've found that a brad nailer can be remarkably accurate, but strangely hitting one doesn't even seem to bother it.
HS
It takes a year or so to get a good crop but, once you get a good stand of mint growing around the house, you will hardly ever see wasps close to the house again. Plus it gives off a nice fragrance.
I recently had to deal with this at my parents' house. They have recessed cannister lights in their kitchen and had all sorts of nasties getting in the living area of the house through them.
You're probably wasting your time trying to keep the wasps out of the house entirely. Caulk everything you can and put screen in all attic vents possible. Soffit vents can be a bit tricky.
What I did was screen off the lights with metal screens (up in the attic, of course). It wasn't an easy job due to the location of the lights, but it keeps the bugs where they don't bug people.
Our local newspaper published this idea:
Duct tape the nozzle of a wet-dry vacuum next to the entry point. Fill the tank with water. Turn it on and let it run for a day or so. The wasps will be sucked into the tank and will drown.
An afterthought: You could add a bit of vegetable oil as well just to make sure that their wings get coated and they can't fly.
A bit of dish soap will work better.
I agree!
I have used the vacuum cleaner idea many times. I works like a charm. Fasten it next to the entry at night but wait until mid-day to turn it on. It will catch every wasp as they come back to the nest.
LOL!
Why are you guys so anti-wasp? Why not just leave the nest alone? Those insects are part of the ecosystem, and running a regular vacuum (using a universal motor) for hours on end will put the appliance beyond its life expectancy.
If OP waits a bit, the season will change, and the wasps will disappear on their own.
Bob Morrison wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.west.earthlink.net:
Rainbow vacuum.
He Can't do that! Lee Harvey Oswald died in 1963.
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