Frankly, I like the DIY (Do it Yourself) mindset, but does DIY ground wasp nests removal work? In fact, I am in the middle of a Do It Yourself project of my own, one that I have had to enlist the help of a professional contractor, but that only became “necessary” after I began my DYI house-painting effort. Over the weekend, I entered the home stretch on the painting front, but I ask myself, “…now that I have a contractor working on these other issues, why didn’t I just spring for a painter and save myself days of work, money (some well spent, some flushed down the drain, and most of all save my family the brunt of my stress and angst of dealing with a situation I was never intended to fix myself?”
It’s the same with pest control. Believe it or not, there are reasons professional pest control companies are out there. As much as I understand the drive to fix things myself, Do it Yourself pest control, much like my house project, rarely ends well and usually results in a call to a pest control company long after the money and stress has been flushed down the drain.
Take wasps for instance. Toward the end of summer, there little guys become really aggressive. While you are sipping your red wine and enjoying a steak fresh off the grill, a few, if not a dozen, wasps are lining up to share your meal. After 10 minutes of striking a calm façade and pretending not to be bothered, you decide to take your dinner party indoors. The wasps are just too formidable an adversary in the quest for ownership of your steak.
Scenes like this are all too common as summer draws to a close. Due to hot dry temperatures the natural food sources for wasps begin to diminish, at the same time the wasp population of any given colony is growing exponentially. There is less food and more mouths to feed. It’s survival of the fittest! Of course, your shiny black and yellow neighbors aren’t about to leave you alone no matter how you plead.
This is the case my neighbor faced with a ground wasp nest. Finally, his wife got stung and he thought it was time to knock on my door. Not to ask for service, mind you, but to ask… “What would you do?” I smiled and I said, “I would call United Pest Solutions!”
Here’s why. Of course, I applauded his DYI mentality, but I knew the course things would take. At last evening’s block party, I found things were going as predicted. My neighbor explained he tried filling the ground nest with dirt. They dug through it! He tried covering the area with gravel. The wasps tunneled to the edge of the gravel and went back to life as normal. The next step was to go to the local hardware store to buy a can of wasp spray. Wanting to avoid pesticides, he was now going to use more pesticide than a pest control professional would use, …and, he would have direct exposure to it. I explained to my neighbor that this approach would not work, but I blessed him and his determination and welcomed him to call me next week.
What professionals understand is that DYI remedies almost always fail with ground nests. Here’s what the professional knows that the hardware store doesn’t: While it looks like the wasps tunnel is going down below grade, the tunnel actually opens up into a large cavity where the nest hangs from above. Water and liquid pesticide applications are ineffective because the newly hatching larva are hanging safely above while the treatment strategy gets absorbed into the soil below. Sadly, one reason why people try their own pest control is that they want to control the amount of pesticides on their property. However, after the first treatment with the can of wasp spray, the frustrated DYI’er will treat again, and possibly again. A knowledgeable pest control company, practicing Integrated Pest Management, will be able to resolve the ground nest issue with a fraction of the time, pesticide, and stress, simply because we have the experience and training.
All United Pest Solutions service technicians are thoroughly trained in how to manage difficult pest situations in a manner that provides speedy results while minimizing pesticide usage. We guarantee our treatments, so that you can go back to life as usual as quickly as possible.