Why Are Wasps Flying Into Your Whinmoor Home? Common Causes and Solutions
Food, fizzy drinks and rubbish are the most common reasons a wasp ends up in a kitchen. Here is how to take away the attraction and when to call for help.
Why the kitchen is where wasps turn up
A wasp in your kitchen is usually there for a very ordinary reason: it can smell something it wants. Adult wasps are drawn to sugar, and in the second half of summer they seem to search for it with a particular determination. A sticky jam knife, a half-finished can of cola, a bowl of fruit with a bruise on it or an ice lolly wrapper in an open bin all send a signal that a wasp can follow from a surprising distance.
Late in the season this gets stronger. The colony stops producing the sweet liquid that adult wasps feed on and, as a result, the workers go looking for it elsewhere. That is why the same house can be quiet in June and busy in September, even though nothing about it has changed.
It follows that the first job is not to hunt for a nest but to look at what you have in your kitchen, and to see whether you are, without realising it, laying on a buffet.
Many householders are surprised by how quickly a small spill changes things. A splash of squash on a worktop can bring a wasp within minutes on a warm day.
A kitchen check for hidden attractions
Walk through the room as though you were a wasp, and look for anything sweet, sticky or meaty.
- Fruit bowls, especially soft or bruised fruit, which smells strongly.
- Open bins or bin liners with food packaging, yoghurt pots or drink cans inside.
- Recycling that has not been rinsed, particularly juice cartons and fizzy drink bottles.
- Jam, honey or syrup jars with sticky rims or loose lids.
- Dirty plates and cups left on the side overnight.
- Pet food bowls left out after the animal has eaten.
- Drip trays under cups, coffee machines or the fridge that collect sugary liquid.
Wipe surfaces with warm water and keep the bin lid shut. Rinse recycling before it goes in the box, and take the rubbish out each day during the summer. These small habits often end a wasp problem on the spot, and you will not have needed any other kind of help at all.
Outdoor eating spreads the smell indoors
Many kitchen visits start outside. A family eats in the garden, leaves the plates on the table for twenty minutes and the smell of food collects around the back door. The open door then becomes a funnel.
Try a few simple changes when eating outdoors in the warmer months. Cover drinks with a lid or keep them in a closed bottle, because wasps will crawl into a can and sting a mouth that does not see them. Clear plates and wipe the table the moment you finish. Keep the bin that holds scraps well away from the door rather than beside it. If you cook outside, take the cooked meat indoors quickly rather than leaving it on a plate by the door.
Doing so keeps the wasps' interest in your garden table and away from your hallway, and it makes it easier to tell whether what you are seeing is opportunist foraging or something more organised.
Children's lunchboxes, picnic leftovers and ice lolly sticks are other things that get carried through the door without anyone noticing. A quick sweep of bags and coats after a day out stops a sweet wrapper sitting in a hallway for the afternoon, drawing wasps to a room you rarely think of as a food area.
Telling food-seekers from nest workers
Wasps after food behave differently from those with a nest to feed. Food-seekers tend to arrive in ones and twos, circle the source of the smell and linger around it. If you remove the smell, they lose interest and the numbers drop quickly.
Wasps from a nest are on a delivery run. They come and go along one line, and the numbers do not fall when you tidy. If anything, you notice them in places that have nothing to eat in them, such as a bedroom, a hallway or a bathroom. If wasps are turning up in rooms with no food at all, and you have already cleaned up the kitchen, look for an entry point such as a gap in an outside wall, a roof edge or an air brick.
Do not block a suspected entrance and do not disturb it. A disturbed colony can swarm and sting, and a blocked entrance can send wasps into the house through another gap.
When to call us
If you have tidied up and the wasps are still arriving, or you can see a clear point where they enter the building or a garden structure, it is time to have it looked at. A nest can hold 2,000 to 10,000 or more wasps by the peak in August, so the earlier it is dealt with the better.
Our fixed price is £90 per nest and £35 for any additional nest on the same property, with no call-out charge. We confirm the price on the phone before a technician visits, and no work starts until you agree to it. We are open seven days a week, offer same-day service and cover homes and businesses in Whinmoor and the surrounding areas. The technicians are trained and our work is fully insured.
Ring 0113 347 0014 or use the booking form on the contact page. If anyone at home is allergic to wasp stings, let us know when you book.
If you are unsure what you are looking at, describe it to us when you ring. Where the wasps are, what time of day you see them and how many there are all help us judge whether a visit is the right step.
Wasps on your property in Whinmoor?
Fixed price £90 per nest, no call-out charge, same-day service available.