Wasp Nest Takes Over Bed In U.K. Home

A wasp nest took over a bed in a U.K. family’s spare bedroom, and a local pest control specialist said it was the worst infestation he had ever seen.

If you think a few wasps are terrifying, this family home has a story that could send you to therapy. When the nest was discovered, the homeowner claimed it was like the 1963 Hitchcock movie The Birds, only with the insects.

The house in Winchester has apparently had a small window open in the spare bedroom where wasps had snuck in and decided to make the unused bed into their nest. The home’s occupants hadn’t heard anything because the nesting was generally quiet. In the span of what the exterminator deduced to be around three months, the wasps had chewed through eight inches of the mattress and pillows in order to make the nest larger. It had grown to around three feet across.

A crocheted blanket was about the only thing the wasps hadn’t destroyed.

Open inspecting the bed in question, John Birkett of Longwood Services Pest Control saw a wasp nest consisting of around 6,000 of the insects. It was more than he’d ever seen before:

“I just stood back in amazement.

“The nest split in two and I have never seen so many wasps and I have been doing this for 45 years. I had to go in to the room and close the door, otherwise the house would have been filled.”

Preparing to take out the nest and its inhabitants took special precautions, as Birkett stated:

“I got dressed up looking like ‘Batman and Robin’ and went into the little tiny bedroom. I was spraying them left right and center.”

Eliminating the wasp nest took around two hours of spraying and swatting the flying cloud of terror, and was probably the bravest thing Birkett has ever done. He even offered to let them keep the empty nest he’d carefully disassembled, but they understandably declined:

“That would be quite nice to keep. They’ve worked really hard at this. But the [homeowner] didn’t think that was a great idea.”

What would you do if you found a massive wasp nest in a room you rarely used? The chances are pretty good that the U.K. family won’t be ignoring that room or keeping the window open again.

[image via Wikipedia]