the wasp nest
a while back, i lived in a house with a lovely big garden. rockery, the works.
one day, whilst enjoying the taste of a fine jamaican rollup, i noticed a wasp. well, i say a wasp, this was a Wasp. capitalised. one of those angry germanic bastard wasps, with the red bits like a dwarf hornet. it was following a very specific path, every few minutes (may have been more than one in retrospect) under a big slap of the old garden path in the rockery.

a day or two later, there could be seen a pinky-sized hole, under the rock, and three or four wasps. in and out.

a day or two later it was like fuckin heathrow.
me and the landlord decided it was time for ACTION!

we decided to try and flood them out.

sneaky hosepipe action later and suddenly there is a 2ft across ball of furious wasps chasin us as we leg it into the house and slam all the windows.


so we leave it a couple of days. a plan is formulated.

we return that night armed with a funnel, a length of hose, and a half-pint of petrol. end of hose gingerly fed into now 2.5" hole. petrol poured in.
how to light it? flick matches until one catches.

unfortunately, we did NOT count on the propulsion effect launching a cloud of angry, flaming, wasps out like some kind of hideous death cannon. interesting facts, wapss are pretty nippy on their toes if de-winged... also the huge cloud of wasps that followed told us in no uncertain terms we had a BIG nest. at this point, really, we should have called in pest control. did we? did we fuck as like. one of them stung my buddy, this was WAR.

a couple days passed, a tense standoff. we'd stare out the window at our now wasp-run garden, they would ping off the windows periodically, and now and then make incursions into the kitchen.

eventually, we decided the best course of action was to get the big bit of concrete path off the top, so we could see what was under it. after some coin-tossing, prevaricating, my mate got kitted up in a home-made wasp-proof suit wheelie bin liners, duct tape, bandanas, tin of raid) ran in, hooked a big crowbar over the back edge and flipped it over. a few wasps came out and we scarpered, but it wasn't as dramatic as we hoped.

then muggins here decided to lob a head-sized piece of granite at the hole to 'block it'

the rock hit the soil, and disappeared out of sight. i was afforded a brief glimpse of a seemingly endless papery fortress like the fuckin death star before an anbsolute raging TORRENT of these bastards came out, we ran like fuck for the house, slammed the door behind us, heaved a sigh of relief.
about that time the neighbour started screaming blue murder... poor cow was out in her garden, sunbathing with her earphones in.

the swarm was i kid you not, filling the entire back garden and the neighbours. when we finally got the pest people in the nest was one of the biggest they'd seen, a 4FOOT across underground chasm with a couple of ante-chambers, ours was the latest in a series of entrances to open up.

i kid you not, even for normal non-wasp allergic types, there was EASILY enough wasps to kill us stone dead.
so take note folks
if wasps were a couple inches longer, we would ALL be their bitches.
(UppityDamnPrimate LET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 18:19, 6 replies)

I hear you.
All options i would have tried myself. I think you called them in at the right time though, no going back from that one. Great story.
(el perro grande, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 18:26, closed)

the worst bit was my mate stayed in the house after i moved out.
about a year later he was putting up a picture in the upstairs room. hammering in a nail to some shitty plaster, on the slanted bit where the roof comes in, misses nail (probably high) hammer goes traight in, tears out a big chunk of plaster, which is followed by a bunch of pissed off wasps who were nesting in the roof space.
motherfuckers came back for more!
he's a skinhead too, his head was COVERED in angry red lumps :D poor bastard.
(UppityDamnPrimate LET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 18:36, closed)

Wasp Death Star
I loved it! Esp. the home made wasp-proof suit, is there nothing a man can't do when armed with a tin of raid?
(Puddle of Sugar was still wallpapering on, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 21:26, closed)

Ha!
Nice!!!
( SpankyHanky, Sat 14 Feb 2009, 19:51, closed)

try googling
"vespa japonica"
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 17:15, closed)

Nice!
Great story - god I hate wasps, little stingy angry bastards. They're the gingers of the insect world.
(dhroadie, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:37, closed)