Yesterday the kids stayed home from school since it was Election Day. Around 11 a.m. I got a phone call. “There’s a wasp in the house.”
Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, except on Thursday night of last week we also had a wasp in the house, which Denis heroically tracked and killed. And then on Saturday while I was in Delaware for my cousin’s wedding, there was another one in the house. And now on Tuesday – a third.
“Kill it,” I said.
“Uh….NO.” CootieGirl was adamant. “I’m not getting near that thing.”
We went round and round about how she needed to kill it, with massive protests from both children. CootieBoy threatened to spend the rest of his day up in his room. After some encouragement, I hung up and waited.
An hour later, we were on the phone again. “Did you kill it?”
“No,” she said.
“It has been AN HOUR!” I cried.
“I know, but I’m scared.”
I stayed on the phone a bit longer, and finally she killed it. I congratulated her and hung up.
An hour later my cellphone rang again. “There’s another wasp in the house.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. But CootieBoy is going to kill it.”
“Okay.”
About 30 minutes later I received a call. CG had finally killed it (CB wasn’t able to muster up the courage).
And can you believe it – about another hour later, another call.
“Mom, there’s a third wasp in the house.”
It was at this time I became concerned. That’s five wasps in five days, three of which are within hours of each other? I know it’s cold outside and bugs are trying to make their way indoors to get warm, but that’s trouble. The kids retreated to the upstairs for the rest of the day when they lost sight of the wasp and were unable to find it. I began making phone calls to various pest control companies to find a company that would come out and see if they could find the origin of these red paper wasps. One company asked if they were primarily showing up in a room with a chimney. I said yes, and the woman explained that they likely were coming down the flue, or had a nest in the flue.
“Do you use your fireplace?” she asked.
“Nope. It’s a gas fireplace and we turned it off and closed it up a few years ago.”
“Then it’s possible they started a nest in the flue because it’s not in regular use.”
*shudder*
Even with that conversation, she said her team could not come out unless there was verified visible evidence of a nest (meaning *I’d* have to unblock my fireplace opening and look up the flue. Uh, no. That’s not happening.
A few more phone calls later, I finally found a company willing to come out today to take a look. And in the meantime, I opted to leave work a couple hours early so I could go home and check around the outside of the house to see if I saw evidence of where wasps might be coming in the house.
But here’s the problem. Our backyard is really overgrown, and specifically is very overgrown on the fireplace side of the house. Our intention was to clean it up and lay down mulch. But the summer heat was brutal and we never finished. And because we never finished, the weeds and such really took over on that side of the house to the point where you can’t even really see the 40-50 bags of mulch still laying in various stacks along the fence on that side of the house. True story.
Anyway, when I got home I went out back and hesitantly began wading through the various plant life – nervous about snakes (we get copperheads in our area) and poison ivy. Pushing various things out of the way, I got close to the chimney and couldn’t see any nests of flying insects.
Until I heard something buzzing around my ear. I turned to hightail it out of there, but because of the rains we’ve had over the past couple of days, the weeds I was standing on were slippery, and I ended up doing this crazy Scooby-Doo run-in-place thing where my feet were moving but my body wasn’t. Until it was, and I pitched forward and took a couple steps before faceplanting on the ground. So embarrassing, even if no one was there to see it.
When Denis got home from work a couple hours later, he looked around and we finally saw the third wasp, which he promptly disposed of. We didn’t see any other wasps last night (thankfully). And now it’s morning and I’m here at home waiting to meet the bug guy. Hoping he finds the origin. Hoping it’s a cheap and easy resolution. Hoping that when he opens up my fireplace that he doesn’t find a nest RIGHT THERE in my fireplace (that would be horrifying). Hoping that whatever he finds is OUTside the house and simple to remove.
