1. Walk into your small one bedroom apartment, and set down your bags.
2. Mistake that faint buzzing for an inevitable sign of aging.
3. Scream and duck for cover when you realize it’s actually a huge, killer wasp that’s now nose-diving towards your head. No. Now is not the time to gloat that your hearing hasn’t failed you yet.
4. Army-crawl out of the living room.
5. Watch the killer wasp flit around your living room in fits of rage. Make sure you do this from the safety of your quasi-hallway, a full six feet away.
6. Call your live-in boyfriend. If he doesn’t pick up, don’t leave a message. There’s no time for messages. Call him at least 6 more times before you decide to break up with him.
7. Freeze. The angry wasp is flying towards you. Let your fear paralyze you.
8. SNAP OUT OF IT, WOMAN!
9. Take out your smart phone. No, you’re not calling your ex-boyfriend again.
10. Google “Hiw to jukk a waso.”
11. Curse your shaky, fat fingers!
12. Google “How to kill a wasp.”
13. Quickly skim a thread on “Best way to KILL WASPS indoors!!!!!?????” and make a mental note that five exclamation points and five question marks do not, in fact, do your predicament justice.
14. Find a feasible, contact-less strategy to immobilize the monster wasp: hairspray. BRILLIANT.
15. Grab hairspray from the bathroom and take off the cap.
16. Army-crawl back into the living room, armed with your hairspray, locked and loaded.
17. Squeal as the wasp takes another nose-dive towards your head.
18. Don’t shoot the hairspray, and let your fear paralyze you yet again, you pathetic asshat.
19. Throw open every single door in your apartment (two).
20. Retreat back to the relative safety of your hallway, ya big wuss.
21. Telepathically will the wasp to make an escape.
22. Congratulations. You telepathically will it to make itself at home on your ceiling, instead, moron.
23. The wasp doesn’t budge. That tricky little fucker thinks it can wait you out, doesn’t it? Well, little does it know, you once stood in line for almost three hours in thirty-degree weather to see a room full of Christmas lights for forty-five seconds. Show that wasp what’s up.
24. Wait.
25. Wait some more.
26. Crouch in your quasi-hallway with both doors still wide open. Keep your eyes on the wasp, your senses alert. Provide fodder for neighborly gossip.
27. Oh, NOW your ex-boyfriend calls you back. Look down to quickly silence your phone. You don’t want to anger the killer wasp anymore than it already is.
28. Look back up. You mustn’t lose track of your enemy’s location.
29. You lose track of your enemy’s location.
30. The wasp is nowhere to be seen. You are officially useless.
31. Cautiously close the doors. Go about the rest of your day. Get back together with your ex. Get ready for bed because, you tell yourself, he must have flown out one of the doors when you weren’t looking.
32. Sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life.
Tags: advice, all bees and wasps are repulsive, animals, charlene cheung, GODDAMNIT CHARLENE JUST MOVE OUT NOW, wasps
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This guide also applies to bats.
A bat came into my kitchen this summer. I think I shrieked for 5 minutes straight.
Bats also have rabies and will kill you dead!
I’ve evicted approximately one squillion bats from my apartment but success and mental stability depends on a) having a balcony door to shoo them towards and b) steadfastly refusing to think about disease reservoirs until after the furry little bastards have departed.
Missing the part about reciting the Litany Against Fear from Dune, but otherwise spot-on. Best of luck in your new home, which should be hermetically sealed once you move in.
Steps 9 through 11 are me every time I use my phone. Every time. Regardless of whether or not my demise is imminent.
“Hiw to jukk a waso” oh my god, perfect. TOUCHSCREEN!!! (I want to somehow indicate I am yelling this like Shatner yells KHAAAAAN but I’m not sure how other than this)
Although this is missing the step where it buzzes with a terrifying, INCREDIBLY loud noise between window and Venetian blinds and sounds basically like one of the four horsewasps of the apocalypse.
I have killed a GIANT WASP because men are never home when you need them. Now I fear that I am on the Wasp Hit List and can never go outside again. (I used the trap it in a rubbermaid container and throw it outside method).
You are. They congregate in their hives and make plans about you. Been nice knowing you, though.
One time I was stoned and sleeping in my mom’s basement (long story) and there was a spider so big I swear I could hear it walking. I managed to dash across the room to get the portable phone (old school) to call my brother and…. it was DEAD. Horror movie stuff. Only time in my life I’ve wished for a gun. So I could shoot a spider. A SPIDER. Stoned me has a very high opinion of my aim.
I was sitting at home one night and heard this weird tiny clicking/popping sound. Was confused and wandered about my apartment to track it down–I figured one of my lights was on the fritz. WRONG, it was a spider eating a bug and I could HEAR IT FROM ACROSS THE ROOM. I thanked it for eating the bug but told it it was bothering me and sucked it up in my vacuum.
*silent horrified screaming*
Not the vacuum! Aren’t you terrified the spider will survive the ordeal and then lay eggs in the vacuum bag? Then one day a zillion baby spiders will run out to colonize every corner of your home? Or is that just me? I can accept that it’s just me who’s terrified. It’s OK. You can tell me.
I do worry about this, but I’ve been doing it for years and okay so far. *frantically knocks on wood*
I didn’t worry about that UNTIL NOW THANKS. *wibble*
GAAAAAAAAAAAH
I have a debilitating fear of all bugs and one time threw a total, full-on fit in a parking lot because I thought there was a bug in my hair (it was not a bug, it was a bobby pin), so I very much feel your pain. Every time I see a bug in my apartment – especially a large, flying insect WITH THE ABILITY TO STING, I want to just burn my apartment down and walk away without looking back. The only thing I miss about having roommates is that they used to kill bugs for me.
This is my boyfriend’s life story. I kill all bugs in our relationship. I once talked him through killing a cockroach for 45 minutes via the phone because I love him very much.
I am the bug-killer in my relationship because my boyfriend is too zen to kill bugs. He ushers spiders onto scraps of paper, scoots them off outside and wishes them luck.
When a wasp got into my apartment many years ago I quickly whipped up a spray bottle filled with water, dish soap, and hot sauce, and then doused that fucker. He never stood a chance.
Hot Sauce: Basically Good for Everything. Alternately, Hot Sauce: The Duct Tape of Food.
Truth in every word.
Back when I lived in Missouri, a friend came over and commented on a new decoration I’d put up in the kitchen above the oven. I didn’t think I’d put any such decorations in the kitchen and said so. We both paused and stared at the decoration in question before reaching the simultaneous conclusion that it was, in fact, a bat.
A man later came to capture this bat with a empty jar of Folger’s instant coffee.
shhh
i am decor i am not bat
please to not hurt
thank you to nice coffee man
i am dying
this narrative now permanently overlays my memory of the incident
I’m so so pleased.
So is bat.
I love that you prefaced this with “when I lived in Missouri” because I also used to live there and for real that state is crawling with bats, raccoons, grotesquely oversized insects, aggressive stray cats, etc. So many traumatic wildlife run-ins in just a few years.
Heh. In my very first bat-wrangling episode, I came home late one night and didn’t turn on the light going into the bathroom. I give thanks to this day that I stopped for a moment to consider that the toilet seat lid was not, in fact, generally home to dark blotches.
TERRIFYING
bats are okay but i like to severly limit all potential wildlife encounters when my pants are down
You would have hated the one I found in the shower, then. Hoo boy.
I would later come to appreciate the difference between bats that are torpid ie amenable to a towel being thrown over them and shaken out into the great outdoors and bats that are airborne and reenacting their NASCAR fantasies in your bedroom.
The cat considered rodents with wings to be outside of his job description and would conveniently be off “napping” until it was dealt with.
I once killed a wasp by calling over my husband and making him do it and then claiming the credit because I am Terrible.
It’s called delegation and it’s a perfectly legitimate thing, dammit. 😉
I once moved house across an entire city rather than deal with a single cockroach. I’m happy to have _mostly_ outgrown this, but holy fuck is Bug Killing generally the responsibility of housemates and girlfriends.
The Worst Time I Ever Encountered a Wasp was this one time I was meeting a friend at a favourite restaurant, and I got there a little earlier than her so I ordered a coffee and was reading a book and generally just relaxing by the window on a beautiful day when I hear this BZZ BZZZ BZZZZZZZZZ and A WASP IS LURKING ON THE WINDOW TWO FEET AWAY FROM ME. So I cowardly asked the server if she could kill it for me, but it kept flying away upwards towards the ceiling and neither of us could reach it, so I just switched tables and spent the entire meal casting furtive glances towards the window to make sure the wasp was not following me about the restaurant.
I STILL HAVE A HARD TIME FEELING RELAXED IN THAT RESTAURANT.
THIS WAS TWO YEARS AGO.
When I discovered that our chimney had gained a wasps nest (I discovered this by seeing 9 wasps in my living room and hearing an awful buzzing scratching at the chimney breast) I dealt with it the way any modern, self-reliant woman should.
By closing the living room door, putting a sign up saying ‘wasp’ and waiting for my husband to get home.
In my defense, I think I’m allergic.
Unfortunately I live in mid-century modern house; I would have had to burn it down
It’s the sign that makes this story. Like there were going to be a bunch of passersby, walking through your house, who would need to be warned about the wasp.
signs fix everything. Or, more accurately, you don’t need to fix anything if you put a sign up.
(I was worried that I’d fall asleep or something before my husband got home, and he’d discover all the wasps through stinging)
No, trap it and then release it back outside! I try not to kill helpful insects if I can avoid it.
I kill fruit flies with extreme prejudice, though.
HOW ARE WASPS HELPFUL
They eat other bugs! But they are still terrifying.
They can stay outside if they want to help. I do not need them meddling in my domestic affairs. Plus they don’t seem interested in eating cockroaches, which is the main offering inside…
I wouldn’t spare the life of a wasp, but I do capture and release spiders I find in my house for a similar reason (I live in the quasi-woods, so a lot of spiders like to invite themselves in during the summer). My boyfriend thinks I’m crazy, but he also believes that all spiders are the children of Ungoliant and it is only right that they die, so he’s biased against the practice.
Catch-and-release is my default method, mostly.* But gliding your fat brown spidery self down the corner of my tiny shower WHEN I AM IN IT tends to earn you a watery grave.
*In season. A quick death seems kinder than being released into -30C and three feet of snow, though.
I am all for catch-and-release (or, for spiders “donnnn’t kill it! It can stay in here, it’s fine!”) but wasps are horrible and evil and must die.
This winter I taped foil over a useless but drafty vent in my kitchen. Would be working and hear this ungodly buzz and think, oh dear, a bug is inside. Run around to all windows with PB jar and postcard only to find nobody in need of a quick trip outside. Sit down, buzz buzz buzz again. Freaked out royally until I realized it was the wind rustling the foil. I did kill one black widow last year but felt terrible about it. She was hilarious, but about to have about 1,000,000 babies, and I don’t eat that much peanut butter.
Also, for the love of god, can you please change the picture on the main page? ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING.
It’s a good thing I have A Good Attitude Toward Bugs, because my office is in a weird little student-built crooked house that has all kinds of weird eaves and nooks that house wasps and yellow jackets and in the summer they come strolling in and hang around the ceiling, all “hey, we got bored outside so we came to see what you’re doing. ‘Sup.”
We had facilities come spray all the nests (yes, there were plural nests) last fall, but then a bunch of shrubs got cut back and revealed even more (currently empty but, you know) nests that’ll need to be taken care of someday when it’s not below freezing, if that ever happens.
When we had a wasps nest in the side of our house, we looked it up and apparently wasps rarely return to old nests. But maybe that’s just the breed that was in our house? Who knows.
I’m going to choose to believe this is true.
This happened to me with some giant house centipedes. I ended up making a smashing pole out of a curtain rod, some making tape, and a wad of paper towels because they have so many legs and I felt like if I tried to smash them from close up they might leap off the wall at me or scurry onto the ceiling and then fall on my head. Then I obsessively taped over every conceivable gap they could have come in and also put tape facing out around my bed so they’d get stuck on it if they tried to climb up and sting my face. I have never regretted being a spinster more. I was traumatized for along time after and kept thinking I saw them in my peripheral vision.
SMASHING POLE. I love the mental image so much.
I’m only half kidding when I say that this is a big reason why I am looking forward to moving into a new apartment, and moving in with my boyfriend. I have lived alone now for over a year, and it has been wonderful and lovely and I’m going to miss it a lot because boys are gross, but at the same time having a live-in bug-executioner is going to make up for a LOT of things. 😉
Have you made certain your boyfriend is, indeed, a bug executioner? I was thinking the way you are before moving in with my partner because he’s a freaking biologist. But no, I have the be the executioner. He yells my name when encountering any insect or arachnid in the house. He can draw blood from a mouse or perform canine heart surgery at the lab, but he can’t dispatch a daddy long legs? He’s a big guy, shaped like John Wayne (swoon). And he’s a freaking biologist!
Crap. Now I have to set up some kind of test.
The only time I have ever killed a wasp was when I was in eighth grade. One day at recess (K-8 Catholic school. Everyone had recess), a wasp/bee/whatever the hell flew up my skirt. I felt something itching, and rubbed my legs together to try to stop the itch. Then everyone found out that I had to go to the nurse because I was stung by something on my thigh. Yep.
My husband usually runs away from wasps, but one time when he was waiting for a bus, he shut his eyes and waved the umbrella he was holding around and managed to kill one.
I don’t know what we’d do if one got in the apartment. Probably rely on the cat.
There needs to be a step in here where you read a Yahoo Answers comment claiming that when you kill a wasp it releases chemicals that attract other wasps to the scene of the crime and they WILL be angry, because you killed their friend. And a step following that where you run out of your dorm room barefoot at midnight, NEVER TO RETURN
Only applies to yellow jackets, but it is true for them!
a) Noooo! What? Noooooo!!
b) how does that work, scientifically?
Pheromones or something. Or possibly black magic.
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/homehort/pest/yellowjac…
Now I kind of want to pick a fight with a yellow jacket to see if I can smell bananas. Also, how close are these other wasps if they can smell it, too? Are they ALREADY IN THE HOUSE?!
Please don your protective clothing before picking such a fight! And maybe do it somewhere far from your house so they can’t find you later.
I had a similar experience with a giant housefly recently, and the housefly can’t even sting/bite/harm in any way. I’m pretty good in a crisis, but if that crisis involves a bug I’m screwed.
HOT SHOT WASP KILLER. I no shit have two bottles at all times in my kitchen – one is backup in case the wasp…takes it from me? Point being I feel a lot better. It really takes them out in mid air (and yes it’s gross smelly poison but…WASPS).
Then again, mud dauber wasps congregate on my veranda en masse every single year, so gross smelly effective poison is a necessity to get out of my apartment sometimes. Last year they colonized my plastic porch chairs (OVER AND OVER, I kept killing the nests and they’d just build new ones) and I finally gave up and had to throw them away because they were TAINTED. Every summer it’s me vs wasps. I sometimes win battles but I think I may never win the war. *smokes cigarette and gazes moodily into distance*
I had a mud dauber building a nest in my bedroom last summer (it came in through the gap next to my window AC unit). I killed it with poison and I felt bad when I looked it up later and realized they’re loners and her presence didn’t portend a whole colony of wasps ready to move into my bedroom. Then she got her revenge when I went to destroy the nest and realized it was crammed full of dead spiders and they ended up all over my windowsill and bedroom floor.
D:
D: D: D:
Hmm, would it be considered an overreaction for me to just go burn my apartment down now? Just to be sure that doesn’t happen, you know, take preemptive steps. That’s fine, right?
In these parts we have giant wasps colloquially known as “Cicada Killers,” and that does indeed describe their main gig. They are very non-aggressive but also the size of a 737. One summer evening when my wife was 8 months pregnant, one of these followed me into the house. We were debating calmly what to do (really – these things aren’t aggressive) when it flew into a big plastic bag full of clothes we were going to take to a thrift store and began buzzing really angrily, since it was confused and sort of stuck. I started to say “I’ll throw this towel over top and close it and…” when my heroic wife just grabbed up the top of the bag to seal it, had me open the door, put it outside, opened the top, and watched the wasp take off (after clearing it with air traffic control).
She’s a bad-ass.
I just cut them in half with scissors. I am a badass.
oh my god but how do you TRAP them?
No trapping – just swoop in and snip! It requires a certain steely resolve, and it helps if they’ve landed somewhere, but it’s not entirely necessary. Just be careful when scooping up and throwing away the stinging bit – it will be happy to sting you even in dismembered death.
……DUDE!
You ARE a badass. The baddest.
D:
D: D: D: D: D: D:
One time I was sitting outside, and a yellow jacket landed on my thigh. I stayed very still hoping it would go away, but instead it wiggled its butt at me and stung me through my pants! Asshole. Then it just flew away. Moral of the story: yellow jackets are assholes.
I flail and run from those damned things. I don’t care what anyone says, they’re angry, evil, nasty things that chase you & sting you without provocation.
They really are assholes.
So….no one else does the hand-inside-a-hard-soled-shoe squish method?
Noooooo you can’t squish big things! It makes a…sound.
But I hate them so much. The sound is gross yet satisfying to my Hymenoptera*-hating heart.
*I really only hate the ones that sting. The others are solely creepy.
For those pests higher up on the wall, I find that pinching the toe of a shoe and holding heel up allows for a more surefire smash.
I do this for cockroaches.
Ooh, I had a load of wash on the line to dry today (sorry to everyone still encased in ice) and when I went to get it there were wasps in the V of the clothespins! They’re looking for anything wood to chomp on so it makes sense but still, man. I felt like I needed one of those Hurt Locker suits to get my underwear back. P.S. Hippie trick for those of you with recurring mud nest issues: Paint fences, eaves and outdoor furniture with dish soap or dissolved Fels-Naptha. They don’t like it and will generally build elsewhere, and it lasts a long time. This is the first year I’ve tried it and they’re super pissed because nothing smells good to them anymore.
My go-to is Windex. I grew up in a house with a lot of centipedes. What you want is something that can act at a distance so that you can paralyze it while screaming and shutting your eyes. Then go after it with a paper towel. Ugh… even today, whenever I smell Windex, I think of centipedes….
I just roll up my work style guide (which is a fairly hefty tome) and whack them against a window, if I can’t waft them out of the windows. I do have to get them out before the cats try to eat them. I leave spiders alone though, I’ve got no issue with them.
10. Google “Hiw to jukk a waso.”
my LIFE. stupid stubby fingers.
also No, you’re not calling your ex-boyfriend again.
this was so great and perfect.
Hmm, would it be considered an overreaction for me to just go burn my apartment down now? Just to be sure that doesn't happen, you know, take preemptive steps. That's fine, right?
YIKES. My ex had a hornet's nest in the attic of his mother's house, and he had many traumatising and traumatic stories about waking up to his bed being covered in hornets when they had snuck in through the light fittings. This was why I was responsible for wasp-disposal in our household!
I APPLAUD THIS REFERENCE.
crying because best reference ever
I want you to know, although amusing. THIS DID HELP WHEN BEING ATTACKED IN SHOWER BY WASP.
I don’t know how he knew I was naked and vulnerable. But it happened.
10 minutes, Conditioner in the eye, a Swiffer, flipflop, and half a can of hairspray later-
I WON, I WON MOTHERFUCKER.
Without the help of the giggling asshole on my couch, who is never getting laid again.
This is just what I needed to help entertain myself while I am trapped in my bedroom and the largest wasp of life enjoys himself flying around in my living room. I feel better. But hungry since I didn’t have lunch yet, and now I’m thirsty too. And mad that my phone is in living room too, so I can’t even call my boyfriend to ask for help/advice.
This is me right now except I have to pee and I’m hungry. I have lots of water though ._. This wasp is in the downstairs bathroom. After sending my boyfriend a message about my predicament (I may have used the F-word one too many times and in various ways) I told him I have to pee and all I get in response is “Wow” I don’t think anyone understands how intense this really is. My brothers are no help and my dad is gone in napa and just told me that my older brother was gonna try and kill it (this was like three hours ago).
Currently have a red wasp in the living room. I cannot find the strength to leave the solitude of the bedroom. I, sadly, googled “best way to kill wasp in house” grammar errors and all. I’m now here. I only did this because I’m highly allergic to red wasps and founs this out at the age of six when one flew into my drink and stung the living hell out of my tongue. I was really hoping this article would help. I am disappoint.
Glad to see so many people are in the same predicament as me. I'm holed up in my bedroom waiting for my parents to come home and kill the damn thing for me. I have to pee but I'm not risking my life.
We keep our cat away. The wasp was in the bathroom, so the cat had only one minute in the bathroom.
I am not disappoint because this entire article and comment thread is like a support group for me. I currently have a wasp trapped under a laptop computer on my living room floor. I dropped it on his ass earlier – but when I went to clean up the carnage he was ALIVE. VERY MUCH ALIIIIIIVEEE! I dropped the computer again and ran away.
So now I’m just drinking heavily until my husband, who can handle this shit, is home. I keep looking at the floor to see if the wasp is making an escape oh god
A wasp flew in my home office earlier. I was able to trap it between the window and screen. As I left the room for break, I had the disturbing feeling that he would escape back into the room by the time I came back. Sure enough, I came back in to discover him now on the inside of the window, back in the room. I was trembling like a leaf. Found a vase and a piece of cardboard and eventually managed to trap him and carry him out of the room. However, I was shaking so badly that I couldn't make it down the stairs so I could get to the door to let him outside. He is now trapped on the floor outside the door, with the vase weighted. Perhaps I'll just leave him there. Hopefully he doesn't escape again. I'm a bit nervous to even leave the room, in case he's out there, waiting for me. At least this page gave me a laugh.
I was just about to take a shower when I realized there is a huge ass wasp on the wall. It wasn’t moving and I though it would just stay there ( it’s 1 am btw) to sleep or whatever wasps do. But then it started moving. It was cleaning itself I think and then he started buzzing, but not flying.
I had a feeling this was bad news. I don’t know, maybe I woke it up when I turned the light on in the bathroom. Either way, I had already gotten naked and was still thinking whether I should ignore it or not when the thing started FLYING.
I ran out of the bathroom and into my bedroom, and looked for bugspary, but with no luck. I’m visiting my grandparents and they’re sleeping downstairs, so I don’t really want to wake them up for a bug. Even though I am allergic to bees and wasps.
So next thing that came to mind was hairspray, but I didn’t pack any and the one my grandma has was in the bathroom. With the wasp.
I make my way back to the bathroom and open the door, but I don’t enter. I wait. For like a good 20 minutes. My clothes were on the floor where I left them, along with all my shower gels, body washes, fancy razors and my beloved loofah.
I sigh. I don’t know how to kill this thing and opening the window will only let 1000000009 more bugs enter since its late and this house is near a forest.
Taking my phone, I google how to kill a wasp but mostly there was just stuff about bugspary or hairspray. I read an article which ends with “careful as they (the wasps) may get angry. Be prepared to get stung (:”
That was just a hit in the ribs. (: yeah have fun out there being a target for some killer wasp.
So I abandon the thought of taking a shower. The next thing that I must do is simple: get in there and get my clothes. And my loofah.
Sneaking in carefully, I spot it. The thing was on the ceiling light, just standing there. Doing its thing. I keep an eye on it as I grab my stuff, then shut the light and run.
As soon as I shut the light I heard it : a buzzing noise from the bathroom. Thankfully, I closed the door. And got my loofah.
But as I sit here, writing this, I am tired, sweaty and afraid with a wasp in my bathroom. I don’t know what to do. I’ll probably tell my grandma tomorrow morning and she’ll hopefully kill it.
I set up like 10 reminders for tomorrow morning to remind me NOT TO PEE in the bathroom whatever happens.
Wish me luck.