Ugh. Was in the bathroom today, and after washing my hands, heard a weird almost crackling sound. At first I thought it was water dripping . . . I was afraid there was a leak in the roof (we have a sloped ceiling in this second story part of the house) or a dripping pipe. Listening carefully, (after feeding the cats to get them to shut up) I realized it was coming from the wall/ceiling area, not a pipe, and it's hasn't rained in days. Went onto the porch to make sure it wasn't something rattling in the breeze on the other side of the wall (my wife has a lot of junk out there - once I thought I heard a slow "drip, drip, drip", and realized it was some box sitting on an uneven stool that wobbled with the wind and was bumping the siding.)
But I had a fear of what it actually was, and when I climbed on the porch railing (carefully, it's second story) a bit and looked along the roof, sure enough I see a bunch of wasps coming and going through the small space under one of the slate shingles, right by where the vent pipe comes out. They must be living in either the wall or the space between the roof rafters.
I have a terrifying, irrational fear of wasps, hornets, and bees and such, and I feel like I about to throw up. We used to get a few wasps nests on the eaves of the porch, and I would just suit up in the morning and spray them with the foaming wasp spray stuff, or if it was a solitary wasp, smash them against the ceiling with a stick. Once we had them in an exterior electrical box. (And I still had the heebie jeebies after the winter when I opened it up to replace it and a handful of desiccated corpses fell out.
I am freaking out right now (again, I hate these things, and get too worked up.) Called my father, and he's of the "lets go up in the early morning before they get going and spray them" mindset; he's offered to come help. I know the wasp spray will go far, but I figure we still need a ladder to reach the second story eaves, and being confined on a ladder when wasps may be getting angry is not my cup of tea.
I'm mostly terrified by how many of these things must be in there if I can hear it through the walls . . .
I think any DIY attempts may just be a bad idea at this point, and calling a professional is the best course of action. But ugh. The minute I read anything online, I get terrified by horror stories of people finding entire wall cavities filled with these things. I am not going to sleep well tonight . . .
At least we haven't seen any in the house.
I started the day off with a cat peeing on the floor right in front of me, and now this. Today has just been awesome!
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