I rose and shuffled barefoot to the window, yanked on the venetian blinds cord and HELLO! Three yellowjackets climbed up and down the window pane, and one more lay curled and dying in the window well, against the screen.
These are the little buggers which hover around the hole in your
can and try to bogart your beer.
WTF? How did they get inside? I had the window up about four inches, but the screen was closed. Was there a gap between at the top of the screen frame where they got in?
They're the kind of window that can be removed from their track and laid flat for easy cleaning, so I laid them out and shooed the yellowjackets away. I closed everything up and chalked it up to a fluke of nature. The sun is lower in the sky and hitting the side of the building more directly, so I figured maybe the heat radiating off of the building attracted them.
The following Monday I came home for lunch. I stepped into the bedroom and noticed two yellowjackets on the floor, one dead, one almost dead. Summa-beech! HTF are they getting in here? I vowed to go buy some Raid and spray the screen and window frames to try to keep the bugs out. I did so that evening, and I sprayed the areas I thought would keep them out.
A couple days later I came home and there were more wasps on the window up high, on the inside-the-apartment side. I opened the window again and shooed them away using a hanger, expecting any moment to piss them off and get stung. I went outside and looked for any sign of a nest somewhere around my bedroom window. I'm on the second floor and, craning my neck up at the window, I noticed nothing other than that, apparently during the remodeling of my apartment building, the workers had knocked the front grille off of my wall-unit air-conditioner, and left it bent and leaning against the building.
Sunday I left for a few days in Atlanta, but not before noticing six yellowjackets walking around on the window. Fed up, I grabbed a dishtowel from the kitchen (I don't currently own a flyswatter) and took aim at one on the glass. In old boys'-locker-room form, I wound that towel into a thin weapon, cocked and snapped. POW! Direct hit! The wasp was dead before it hit the carpet! the others were on the outside of the glass, but inside the screen, so I shooed them away. I made sure to close the window before I left.
Thursday when I returned home from Atlanta and Palm Beach, Florida, I was greeted by seven wasps, most of them lying on the carpet beneath my window, most of them dead, a couple others looking like they wished they were. I surmised that the only way they could have gotten in was through the air conditioner. I sprayed a couple of the healthier ones walking on the glass, and they, joined their fallen comrades on the carpet.
Friday I came home for lunch and there were three or four more wasps inside the apartment and clinging to the glass, and another one or two dying on the carpet. I stepped back outside and looked up at the air-conditioning unit. Finally what I had not noticed earlier: a nest clinging to the side of the cooling unit inside the shell of the unit! I called the apartment management office and told the woman who answered about the nest. She seemed preoccupied and said she would send someone.
When I returned from work there were a couple more yellowjackets in my room. I figured I would wait until Saturday to see if anyone showed up before I called again.
Saturday morning I awoke to loud rustling sounds in my air-conditioner. It was around 8:30. Normally I would be perturbed about maintenance guys starting so early at my inconvenience, but if it meant I would be rid of the wasps, then so be it! Maybe he would appreciate some coffee! After a few minutes the rustling sound continued, and I thought, How long does it take to remove a freakin' wasps' nest? Then I heard a frantic chirping noise. Dat ain' right. I got up and looked out the window and saw not an apartment complex handyman braving the ravages of wasps' nest busting, but a gaggle of wild birds — sparrows, or perhaps finches — feasting on the little morsels in the wasps' nest! They were raiding the nest and eating the wasps! How cool! How serendipitously fortunate for me! Or maybe the apartment complex handyman has a gaggle of trained common birds and he sends them in to handle the dangerous part of the job so he can accomplish it and be an unstung hero!
After a while the birds left the nest alone, and I left the apartment for a few hours. When I returned around two o'clock I found two more yellowjackets on the carpet. It had been more than 24 hours since my call and the nest had still not been eradicated. I called the apartment manager's office and explained that I had called the day before about it, but nothing had been done. I told her that I would call this an emergency. I was ready to tell her that if I got stung by a wasp in my own apartment, I would not be paying next month's rent. Fortunately I didn't have to go that far. She said she would send someone right away.
About 30 minutes later, as I browsed the internet, I heard a noise that sounded like it was coming from the air-conditioner in the next room. I looked out the window in my office, but saw no handyman. Now what could it be? I went into my bedroom, and there he was…IN my bedroom! I had never heard him knock, so, with my permission to enter, he did! By the time I found him, he was already cleaning up and getting ready to leave. He had already removed the nest, put a new grille on the front outside, pulled the unit inside through the wall and cleaned it out! And then he fixed the drain plug in my "master" bedroom wash basin!
So now I'm wasp-free, I've slept three nights on my week-old bed and I got a glimpse of Mother Nature proving to me that even she hates wasps!
3 comments:
Boy, that is some tale! I hope they stay gone. Our bees are still here, even thought the bee man removed his hive and caulked everything. I saw them 3 days later; coming out and going into a very small hole in the caulk above a window. That hole wasn't there before, so either they drilled to get in - or one of them drilled to get out - I don't know which. At least they aren't IN the house4.
I'm a Yellow Jackets fan, but that doesn't mean I want any real ones in my house! I would have lost my patience with your situation. When I lived in New England, I had a problem every summer with paper wasps. They would build nests all over everything in my yard and fly all over the place making a nuisance of themselves. Gah!
kenju— I had hoped they would stay gone, too, but early Sunday afternoon I almost put my hand on one as I reached for my backpack to get my laptop computer out! This one was in my office, next to the bedroom where they were getting in before. Then I went into my bedroom to get a shoe with which to kill the bugger, and there were TWO wasps in there! I'm hoping they were just stragglers who didn't get the memo, but we'll see tomorrow!
fermicat— I'm a more patient person than most realize, but you can bet I was swearing up a storm during the above-mentioned-to-kenju situation happened!
Post a Comment