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Enormous nest with 5,000 wasps found in woman’s spare room

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.
Enormous nest with 5,000 wasps found in woman’s spare room

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.

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Now that we’ve got that little note out of the way, let’s dive into a story shared by a pest controller from the UK, who called it the strangest experience in his 45 years of work.

Throughout the year, depending on where you live, you might notice more bugs hanging around your home. Ants can be super annoying when they find their way inside, and fruit flies have been a real headache for me every summer since I moved into my place.

But I bet you’ll agree that these little annoyances are nothing compared to what a homeowner in Winchester, Hampshire, UK faced when she didn’t realize that a whole colony of wasps had made her house their home.

You might have seen wasp nests before, maybe a small one on your porch or in a tree nearby. But I’m pretty sure you’ve never discovered that wasps had completely taken over an entire room in 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.

Enormous nest with 5,000 wasps found in woman’s spare room

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.”

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Birkett has a lot of experience with pest control and has seen almost everything during his career. However, he was still surprised by how huge the nest was that the wasps had created over several 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.

Birkett, wearing protective gear and carrying pest spray, managed to take care of the nest in just an hour. Once he took the nest apart, he discovered that the insects had gnawed through the mattress and the bed posts.

“To be honest, the nest was like a beautiful piece of art,” he said.

“I feel conflicted about getting rid of the wasps. I don’t like to harm any creatures, but sometimes you have to because they can be a real nuisance.”

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