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Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas!
Travis McGowin:
So a couple of years ago I actually had a family friend give me a call on my cell phone and and he said Travis we have a yellow jacket problem. I said okay all right well uh when do you want me to schedule that appointment? I can be there you know tomorrow morning tomorrow afternoon and this call came in on a Sunday so I’m expecting he wants service on a normal business day on a on a Monday and he said no you don’t understand we have yellow jackets inside my house and I said all right I’ll be over in just a little bit so I got there and it was only the only way I can actually describe it is that it could be a scene from a horror film so these yellow jackets had actually built a gigantic nest um from the outside of the house up through where the vinyl is on the side of the house and into the attic and then had chewed through the sheetrock in the corner of their dining room and there when they came home from church or grocery shopping wherever they went they opened the door and there were hundreds of yellow jackets flying around inside their house. I mean does that not sound like a nightmare to you?
Michael Wienecke:
Man that that’s terrible. I have also experienced that before. We we had a huge house that had buzzing in their wall um we thought it was a beehive we got in the bedroom there was a little bit of tape over a hole. I pulled the tape back just a little bit to see what we were dealing with because like I said I thought we had a honeybee issue and they just started pouring out in in droves so I went downstairs what I shut the door I put everything I could up under that door frame to keep those things from getting out um because I was not prepared for this moment at all so it was it was like a slap on the face.
Travis McGowin:
I will say I’ve had a similar situation too we had a we had a call from a commercial client in Montgomery that was using an older home as an office and there was a giant yellow jackets nest built onto the side of the house right around a window frame and they had yellow jackets coming in on the inside straight through the wall in the window frame and getting into the the office area of that old house and and uh that just yellow jackets in general are bad but yellow jackets inside your living space or your office space are are that’s just terrifying.
Michael Wienecke:
Oh huge huge um not only that they’re aggressive they are extremely aggressive.
Travis McGowin:
They are they are now I know and I tell people these stories anybody anytime anybody asks me about a yellow jacket I always talk to them about those two examples I just gave the the house and the office building because there’s a very common misconception I think a lot of people actually think that yellow jackets only build nests in the ground.
Michael Wienecke:
That’s correct most of the time when we do have our ground nests you know that we have to go take care of that’s what people see and then that’s why it’s always a honeybee call or or some other kind of call with buzzing in the wall because nobody suspects that yellow jackets are able to get into a wall void or into vinyl like you had said and and build build a nest I’ve seen them in in the split of a deck.
Travis McGowin:
Yeah they uh you know I was I was one of those believers too that that just thought that they were only in the ground and typically you know I have found a couple in my lifetime uh riding on a lawnmower you know cutting my grass outside and of course it always seems like when you run over their nest they pop you right in the back of the neck and and you immediately know exactly what it is right when they tag you in the back of the neck and I mean of course then your mower lines get off and your yard looks terrible and then you’ve got this big wad of yellow jackets swarming around too uh but somebody’s videoing you and someone’s videoing yeah it’s always on tiktok or something like that so Michael what’s the danger of the yellow jacket in terms of maybe your pets in terms of your kids in terms of yourself like what what’s the problem with contact in these insects?
Michael Wienecke:
So the biggest problem like I said they’re they’re aggressive um where they’ll if you kind of walk by them they’re they’re just sought out to sting you I’ve had issues where I’ve walked over a deck and there’d be one or two right there and it just got me right on the calf uh they’re just very aggressive and of course with that if you’re allergic to them you you’ve got to be very careful knowing if you’re allergic whether you carry an epi pen or or whatever it may be I’ve also heard stories of people getting stung and getting major infections infections in their leg and their arms something like that where they’ve actually had to go to the emergency room so what I would say about looking out for yellow jackets the nest whatever it may be I was I was pushing my son on his playground in the the backyard this morning and I saw yellow jackets combing around the area well we have a um chipmunk hole that seems to be abandoned hasn’t been used for a long time so more than likely those yellow jackets are snooping out a place to nest in my yard so I went ahead and pre-treated that that hole so now I should not have a yellow jacket nest.
Travis McGowin:
yeah you know I’ve uh I’ve been on vacation up in the mountains before and we pulled up you know it was a very steep driveway and had kind of a drop off in the front with a lot of vegetation growing around the front of that driveway so we pulled up and got out of the car right after we arrived at this chalet and something caught my eye moving as you know pest control providers do insects gonna catch your eye or you know no matter where you go you’re gonna see something and go oh I know exactly what that is and uh it looked like an air port. They were flying in and out and you know and of course immediately told my wife told my kids and the family that was with us do do not go over there towards that side of the driveway because there is a nest and they were taking like I said taking off and coming back in just record speed just you know like hundreds of them going you know every couple minutes just in and out of the nest but yeah they’re they’re definitely no fun I like how you said that the anaphylaxis I mean and that for you know that looks different for for different people that can be hives that can be sweating that can be difficulty breathing you know you can mess with your heart rate it can just do a lot of different things to you and infection of course is not great either because you don’t know where these yellow jackets have landed where they’re foraging and looking for food or or what not for the colony so dumpster yeah exactly so in terms of because you know you can diy a lot of things you can do a lot of things on your own but Michael what’s your recommendation for the homeowner that encounters the yellow jackets whether in the ground whether built on the side of their house or an outbuilding or something like that what’s your recommendation
Michael Wienecke:
yeah so the best recommendation like I said with the with with the backyard you know I went ahead and pretreated we we preach you know taking care of a problem before it’s a big problem at that point doing something small I would recommend taking care of that yourself however if you have a nest of you know thousands of yellow jackets I would recommend calling a professional it’s it’s easier for us to come out with our with our equipment get that out or any any press control professional with with the equipment that they have with the safety that they have because at that point if you’re dealing with something that large gasoline is not going to work more than likely you’re going to get swarmed and it’s going to be a bad day
Travis McGowin:
yeah and I will say this too if if it’s manageable enough for you know the homeowner to take care of on their own one of the biggest recommendations that they have is making sure that you don’t go near that nest until nightfall typically most all of the colony is back to the nest in the night time they’re not actively foraging in the dark or anything like that so you’re going to be more guaranteed to get you know the majority of those insects in that nest especially if you go and try to attack them at night and it’s going to be not not saying that fooling with yellow jackets is at any point safe but it will be safer for you after dark
Michael Wienecke:
that is correct and I also actually saw another tip that somebody had talked about and that was using a vacuum using a vacuum works really really well we’ve actually tried it ourselves but they do get past that vacuum so just just just be aware that you’re probably getting 25 of those yellow jackets in the vacuum where the rest are buzzing around your head so that’s that’s just a huge concern when I saw that tip they just they didn’t talk about how they are still going to buzz around and all that so one thing I will say with our quarterly service we do include yellow jackets wasp all that around the house so if you do have a nest that pops up with our protection then we’re going to come out and remove that free of charge included in your service
Travis McGowin:
hello and thank you for listening to another edition of the Peskies pest control podcast with your hosts travis and michael if you have any questions in reference to what we discussed today give us a call at 334-595-9055 and you can ask for me travis McGowin i’ll be more than happy to speak with you make sure you share this podcast with your friends and family and subscribe to us on apple amazon spotify and any of the other major streaming platforms thanks and we’ll see you next time.
