I’m home sick today. Poor me, I’m a mess. But I’m not as much of a mess as my coffee table. The rest of the room is a little disheveled too, but the coffee table is where most of the action is.
Here, take a closer look.
Actually the real mess around here is the wasp situation in that salt-and-sand storage box out back. I have been slowly and methodically psyching myself up, doing my research, and thoroughly inspecting the situation from all angles.
This included opening the box since it has never been opened in the two years I’ve lived here. (I had the brilliant idea of opening the box, but GC was the one who took the deep breath and actually yanked up the lid and flung open the doors! It was very exciting. He’s allergic to wasp stings.)
I’m glad I didn’t just plunge impulsively into this one. I’m glad I’ve been procrastinating taking my time and being wimpy thorough, because you know why? If I had just grabbed the can of spray adhesive and started spraying the nest, I would not have realized this was only one of AT LEAST FOUR wasp nests in and on that box. I might have succeeded in gluing one of them shut and trapping its sticky occupants inside…but I would have left myself wide open for counterattack by the venomous occupants of the other three nests.
Now that I know this, of course, it changes everything. This is a tactical and logistical operation on a scale never before encountered.
First things first: This operation needs a military code name, like Operation Sticky Stingers, or Operation Saltbox Wasp Incapacitator. You get the idea. (Suggestions, as always, are welcome.)
Second things second: How do I launch a coordinated attack on all four of these nests while simultaneously filming the operation for you?
OMG!! That’s not what I saw in the dark last night. I didn’t figure the risk was THAT great. Just LOOK at that coffee table!!!!
So, they ARE wasps and not hornets! There is flying insect aerosols that spray like 25 feet. If you wait until near dark, you should be able to blast them all, in rapid succession, one at a time. Or GC could do it, while you “supervise” and document. BTW, the wasp-infested overhang I had treated last summer? Yesterday, the remodelers removed it and it was FULL of old wasp nests. FULL! (Hope you feel better soon.)
Okay. I have experience in this area. Hang one of those fake wasp nests as close as possible to the infested area. I have one in use now but I don’t remember the exact trade name they sell under. “Wasps-Bee-Gone” or something like that. Home Hardware. (Likely available elsewhere as well.) You get a 2-pack for $10. And you know what? They WORK! Just do it. No harmful sprays & no wasps get hurt. Like someone commented before, those buggers are very territorial. They detect an unfamiliar nest and they skedaddle. These fake nests work. Take my word; I’m an expert. Then again, everyone’s an expert and nobody knows nothing. Right? (As for the coffee table, shame on you.)
Get a pro to do it!!! I’ve been stung by enough wasps to know that you will be damn glad someone in a full body suit removed those nests for ya.
Really!
Do it!
Why are you still sitting down?
Your coffee table has got nothing on mine! Well at least it didn’t until last weekend when it had gotten so bad that when I asked Dave to grab something for me and he said “sure where is it?” and I said “on the coffee table” to which he replied “you get it, I might get lost never to be found again if I try”… so I cleaned it… of course, it still has an odd assorment of things – knitting findings, a barbie doll (mine I don’t have kids) cat treats, a basket full of stuff that “needs to be put away” that just gets tossed in the basket and never put away… oh and of course.. a cat.. a real one.
For the wasps… when you do away with the nests… ball up a bunch of brown paper to look like a hive/nest and hang it inside. Apparently wasps are territorial, and don’t like to be where they think other wasps are. Dave’s uncle hung one in his backyard and didn’t have a wasp problem all summer. Of course the fact that you have several nests in the box may totally discount this theory, unless they are all homes of the smae wasp family…. anyway…
I think given the intensity of the situation, I’d go with Hella Stella’s orders and call in the troops and then you can save the wasp’s nests to make something out of because they’re quite lovely and could come in handy for crafts (har har har). PS: the coffee table doesn’t look so bad.
(That’s why I don’t have a coffee table) (Of course, my desk is a WRECK.)
I’ve always admired author Lois Bujold’s “Incendiary Cat Plot” — an attempted(?) coup alluded to in one of her science-fiction books. That’s all we know about it: a it involved fire, felines and the overthrow of Western Civilization.
How about The Great Wasp Incident of 08? Perhaps simple is better: The Sting. No, that might be begging, erm, complications. How about Operation Diversity (becuase they’re all WASPs, right?
I think i’d better stop there. Really.
I have a collection of old wasp nests, love em! Not the wasps, but their nests are very interesting.
I say live and let live til the first frost then do your thing under cover of frosty night….or call in someone and then hang fake ones.
Perhaps you should gather three, non-wasp-allergic friends and cans of poison and attack simultaneously. Ok, thats a little expensive but probably effective. Maybe. “Operation Sting, Not Stung” Wait, you need five friends. Or a tripod.
Well Zoom – two things:
Your coffee table is not messy, just slightly cluttered, after all, you can still see much of the tabletop!
re: the wasp nests – they are really pretty small. One can of Raid Wasp and Hornet foam stuff, which shoots 6 feet will dispense with them all. It sounds heartless; but I used to have annual huge wasp nests in various strange places in sheds or attached to the house and found that the stuff really works. Too many people have allergies to stings to put off action, and it is really easy. Once a wasp hive was under a little deck beside an above ground pool we used to have and the kids came flying into the house saying they were under attack. I first told them not to be wimps, then I left the (screened in) porch only to find the huge nest with lots of pissed-off wasps. I armed myself with a can of the foam and a couple of garbage bags and it was over. No doubt I was stupid to do it at 3 in the afternoon; but it was a hot day and the kids were all primed for a swim. No one got stung, even me (the kids had wisely taken my place in the screened-in porch by this time. I didn’t want to have to explain stings to their parents…) Not really a big deal – you will no doubt have success!
Okay. Forget the wasps. Winter’s almost here. Let’s get back to the coffee table. I don’t wanna creep anybody out, but in the first photo the table looks very rectangular; in the close-up, it looks hardly rectangular at all. Almost square. (Yeah. I know. I have too much free time on my hands.) Now, don’t tell me about perspective and all that. I know all that stuff. But just look at the two photos. You’ll swear they aren’t the same tables–and yet they are. I’ve stared at them and stared at them. Everything’s in the same place. For sure they’re the same tables. Aren’t they?
When you are home sick that is what the coffee table is supposed to look like!
Good luck with the wasps.
Also, I want to question Tom’s theory about hanging up fake wasp nests because that makes them think someone has invaded their territory and so they’ll leave… WELL, you already have 4 nests all in the same territory and no one has skeddadled yet, right? So, what the hell?
You’re being featured on Five Star Friday:
http://www.fivestarfriday.com/2008/09/five-star-friday-edition-22.html
Okay. For XUP’s information: Judging from the proximity of those four existing nests, those wasps are related–offspring, siblings, cousins, whatever. I don’t know at this point. I would have to do DNA analysis. But those wasps and their nests are entirely familiar to each other. Hence the lack of skedaddling. Fake nest pops up, everybody skedaddles west. This is not theory. This is science. I am an expert. Now, about that damned coffee table: The white book is touching what looks to be a lottery ticket in one photo and yet is practically a foot apart in the other. What camera setting does that? Perhaps a table-leaf has been removed though I don’t see any telltale seams. To tell you the truth, I just don’t know anymore. I’m at my wit’s end.
I agree with Tom. It looks like there’s been a little hanky panky going on. Who or what d’you s’pose is curled up in the wicker chair in the first shot and then is conveniently off camera in the second (could it be DUNCAN??)… Anyhow that table’s not a mess! If it was me, I’d roll up my sleeves and just pluck those hives off with my bare hands and plop ’em smack in the middle of that coffee table. THEN we’d have a good mess! I’d sit back on that wicker chair (oops, ‘scuse me cat), and toot on that clarinet and lead those wasps right out the front door and point ’em to the river. Problem solved!
Ha ha ha. Now you’ve got me doing it – I’m going back and forth between those two pictures trying to figure out why the coffee table’s rectangular in one and square in the other. I’m mystified! (But, because I’ve seen that coffee table practically every day for the past 15 years, I can tell you it’s definitely shaped more like the photo taken from the stairs than from the bird’s-eye photo.)
I can also tell you that the photos were not taken immediately together. I think I took the photo from the stairs, then when I saw it on the computer later I realized how messy my coffee table was and went back for a close-up. This would explain Duncan’s mysterious disappearance.
But jeez, is Huck Finn a sharp-eyed observer or WHAT? He even saw the invisible clarinet! I love (in theory at least) the idea of putting the wasps’ nests on the coffee table.
I’m leaning towards Hella Stella’s idea of turning this job over to the professionals. I’ve got an email in to my friend Doug the Former Exterminator for recommendations. And I’ve contacted a videographer. (Just kidding about the videographer. I do all my own filming.)
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=1&p=56120&cat=2,40725,45454
The Waspinator!
Tom – No kidding? The nests all look so different to me. I am totally impressed with your expertise and more than a little worried about your obsession with the coffee table. In my experience furniture often changes shape depending on the humidity.
omg that table thing is freaky! it is the space between the book at the lotto tickey yjsy jsd me incapable of typing anymore!!! Darkmirror would say “hmmmm…creepy pasta table!”
…we have the same remote control. How weird is that? I’ve dropped mine a few times and now the 2 doesn’t work. If you’ve got an extra I’d be interested in negotiating a deal.
Oh Zoom, I keep meaning to ask – after the dropped and broken camera incident, what camera did you buy? I’m impressed with the pictures of the wasps!
Schmutzie! Thank you very much for the honour.
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