For a few weeks now we have regularly had visitors - wasps in the house.
A couple of weeks ago my wife, when walking across the landing, thought she could hear water running in our loft. I doubted that it was possible because when we had a new combi boiler installed last year - the plumber isolated the old header tanks in the loft, emptied them and blanked off the water supply.
Anyway - I was "required" to investigate and got a ladder to get into the loft. There were dozens of wasps buzzing about up there (which sounded almost like running water) so we probably had a nest.
Outside inspection of the roof resulted in us spotting wasps vanishing under some valley gutter flashing adjacent to a bedroom window. I was all for getting up there by ladder to inject the entrance with insecticide - but my wife was concerned she might be widowed and insisted I got the pest control people in the do the deed.
I rang our town Council who charge £52.50 to rid you of a wasp nest - but they declined to do it because the nest entrance was above the level of the guttering - even though it was only 10" above the gutter. Bloody 'Elf 'n Safety jobs worths. The alternative was to employ a private pest control contractor - possible a rogue trader - who would charge anything between £75 and £200.
I therefore decided to tackle the job myself by leaning out of the bedroom window. I remembered that I brought back from Bahrain (I was an ex-pat there for 12 years some time ago) some packets of insecticide called Ficam W that the pest control people there used to kill cockroaches, scorpions and other multi-legged pests. It is not on sale to the public in the UK because it is toxic. I Googled and found a supply available here - but only to registered pest control contractors - and it was £114 for 10 sachets.
Fortunately I managed to find my little hoard and was able to spray the nest entrance and surrounding area with it using the garden pressure sprayer (It is a powder you mix with water). It cause mayhem within a few minutes, and soon there were hundreds of dying wasps staggering out of the nest entrance and rolling down the roof into the gutter. The following morning I climbed into the loft and located the nest which was huge - about 3 feet long and a foot square built between the fascia, soffit and roof supports. I gave the outside of it a good spray before smashing up the nest - which contained dozens of groggy wasps unable to fly. These were duly despatched with aerosol "Raid" and we are wasp-less once more.
New paragraph....
A few months ago we were down in Cornwall having coffee and cake at a stately home outdoor patio cafe. My wife noticed these strange cloth bags hanging from a couple of parasols at each end of the patio area and we wondered what they were. I went to investigate and found that they were printed with the word Waspinator - but there was no entrance in them - just a cloth bag printed with a strange grey camouflage like pattern. For sure we didn't see any wasps in the cafe patio area. When we got home I Googled the internet and found that they are claimed to work because wasps are violently territorial and frightened of straying into another colony's territory. The Waspinator - to a wasp - looks like a wasp nest and they keep their distance.
Now back to the original story....
Yesterday my wife came back from the garden centre with a packet of two Waspinators. I have put one up in the loft and we will hang the second one in the corner of our patio near the garden furniture. I am cynical about their effectiveness but hope to be proved wrong.
Watch this space
