Found a Wasp Nest in Your Loft in Kirkstall? Here's What to Do
Stored boxes and old furniture give wasps cover at the edges of a loft. Here is why clearing the space yourself is a bad idea, and what to do instead.
The box that felt different
You need a suitcase from the loft for a trip. You raise the hatch a few centimetres, shine a torch across the boards, and then notice a steady line of wasps crossing the beam of light towards the far corner, where the boxes of old books sit against the slope of the roof. You lower the hatch gently and decide to think about it.
That was the right decision. Cluttered loft edges are among the places nests are found, and the first you may see of one is the traffic of wasps rather than the nest itself.
Many households fill the loft gradually over the years, so it is quite normal not to have looked properly at the edges for a long time. Nothing about a nest means you have been careless; it simply shows how well that part of the building suits a wasp queen looking for peace and quiet in spring.
Why the eaves attract them
The low, sloping edges of a roof space are the quietest part of the building. Nobody walks there, the light is dim and the stored boxes break up the draughts. A queen looking for somewhere to start in spring will often choose a gap where the roof meets the wall, and a stack of cardboard beside it makes the position feel even more sheltered.
Cardboard and fabric are not what the nest is made of; the wasps chew wood to make their own paper. But boxes block your line of sight, so a nest that began behind them can grow large before anyone notices. If you live in Kirkstall and have a loft used for storage, it is worth remembering that a full loft is a loft nobody checks.
One more point: a queen starts a nest on her own, and for the first weeks it is tiny. By the time the workers are flying in numbers, it has already become a substantial structure that fills a good part of the corner.
Do not clear the loft yourself
When people find wasps near their stored belongings, the natural reaction is to rescue the belongings. Please resist it. Lifting a box near a nest shakes the rafters and the wasps feel it at once. A defensive colony can leave the nest in large numbers and head for whatever is moving, and in a tight space there is no way to step back.
- Leave boxes, bags and furniture exactly where they are.
- Do not pull cardboard away to look behind it.
- Do not shine a torch at the suspected spot for long periods.
- Do not try to seal the area with tape, filler or newspaper.
- Keep the hatch shut, with a strip of tape along the edge if it does not fit snugly.
Anything you need urgently can wait. Retrieve it once the nest has been treated and the technician says the loft is safe to enter.
Working out what is in the way
You can help the technician by describing the layout before the visit. Think about which side of the house the stored items are on, how far from the hatch they sit, and whether there is a boarded walkway. Mention any particularly heavy or awkward furniture that blocks the route to the eaves.
If the access to the loft is genuinely difficult, say so when you phone. It helps us plan, and it is much better than the technician discovering a locked hatch or a tiny opening on arrival. Our trained, fully insured team deals with a wide range of loft layouts, but we need to know what to expect.
Photographs taken from the hatch, without going in, can be useful too. Keep the hatch opening small, take the picture quickly from a distance with the flash switched off and close the hatch again. Do not do this if you have seen wasps flying in the loft; in that case, just describe what you saw.
Arranging the visit
Ring 0113 347 0014 or send a request through the online booking form on the contact page. We cover Kirkstall and surrounding parts of Leeds, and offer same-day service seven days a week to homes and businesses.
Treatment of the nest is a fixed £90, with no call-out charge, and that price is confirmed on the phone before the visit. A further nest on the same property is £35. We do nothing until you have agreed. If someone in the house is allergic to wasp stings, let us know when booking.
You can also ask on the phone whether the empty nest can be taken down once it has been treated.
Our team will explain what happens next when you call, so there is no need to prepare beyond clearing a path to the hatch and keeping pets in another room.
Putting the loft back in order
After the visit, wait for the technician to say the loft is safe, then go up carefully with a torch, gloves and a bin bag. Dead wasps may be lying on the boxes or between them. Brush them into the bag and seal it.
Take a good look at the stored items. Paper or card that has been in contact with the nest may be marked, and this is a good moment to decide what is worth keeping. If any cardboard is damp or crumbling, replace it with plastic boxes with lids, which also make it harder for a future queen to find a snug hiding place.
Leave a gap between the boxes and the roof slope so you can see the edges next spring, and glance at the corners each April and May.
Take your time over the sorting. A calm tidy once the problem has passed is much better than a hurried one while it is still going on.
Wasps on your property in Kirkstall?
Fixed price £90 per nest, no call-out charge, same-day service available.