Literally Hundreds of Scary Wasps Hiding in My Wall!

OK, maybe I exaggerated a little bit to get your attention. First of all, this picture is not a wasp, it’s a scary hornet. And second of all, the wasps were in the walls. At some point. A while ago. Then they packed up their crap and moved out. This house was too crappy, even for them.

And maybe it wasn’t hundreds. Probably not.

When I demo’d the kitchen, I found a huge (and, thankfully, abandoned) wasp nest. Wasp apartment complex, really. It had multiple levels. Wasp-in closets. I think maybe I saw a gym in there. Wasp daycare.

This wasp compound spanned the width between two studs and about three feet down. So, when I first uncovered it (SURPRISE!), I ran away and did surveillance from afar. Once I was satisfied it was uninhabited, I quickly disposed of it.

Doesn’t it look weird close up? Unfortunately, close up is all you get to see because I don’t have any pictures of the whole thing. Honestly, though. You can’t be mad about that. My first instinct was to get it the hell out of my crappy house. And who even knew I’d be blogging about it years later? Certainly not I.

So here’s the wall where it used to be. I made you a visual. (I think I used a wasp picture this time, but I have no idea. I’m not a bug lady.)

Behind The Nest

So, yeah. The wasp nest was huge. And terrifying. But let’s move on and look at the nasty, brown fiberboard that is now exposed. My whole crappy house was sheathed in it. This stuff was cheap to use and… that’s about it. It was not weatherproof, and not even all that structurally sound. And now, forty years later, it’s crumbling apart.

This wall, in particular, had a lot of problems with things that are supposed to stay on the outside coming through to the inside. Specifically, the aforementioned wasps and water.

Here’s a close up of some fiberboard. You’re interested, right?

Fascinating. So, in order to fix the water problems and keep out any future free loading wasps, this whole wall had to go. And go, it did.

When You Find a Wasp Nest in Your Wall, You Have to Remove That Wall

That’s my cousin, Tommy, removing the entire back of my house. Tommy does everything I can’t do myself because I don’t have man strength. He’s awesome and he knows everything there is to know about houses. (And he’s single, ladies…)

So this is how the back wall turned out.

I get how this might not be exciting for you, but for me it means windows that don’t leak and no unwelcome pests. (Of the insect variety. I can’t control who stops by.)

And, hey, you read it to the end, so you must have been at least a little bit interested. Thanks for sticking it out! And if you enjoy mildly uninteresting home improvements and/or bugs, go ahead and subscribe by typing in your email in the box below. I love when people do that.

Click here to see how my crappy kitchen turned out. Spoiler alert: It’s no longer crappy…

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