A spare bedroom in England became the site for an enormous wasp nest over the summer, going undiscovered until a man walked into the room to see 5,000 wasps hard at work.
Found in a five-bedroom house in Winchester, Hampshire, the 5-foot nest was built after the wasps chewed through a blanket, a pillow and other bedding, the Daily Mail reported. The nest was in an upstairs room that is rarely used, and it apparently had gone undetected since May.
"In 45 years I have never seen anything like it. There must have been 5,000 wasps," said pest control specialist John Birkett, who was called to the unusual scene.
"It was a job to deal with it. I had to put all my protective gear on," said Birkett, as quoted by the Mail. "At one stage there must have been 2,000 wasps buzzing around me. If someone had gone in to the room and not known what it was it would have been pretty serious."
The homeowner, who did not wished to be named, is a woman who lives alone; she hadn't been in the spare room for several months, which is why the nest wasn't discovered until her son opened the door.
"There was a nice quilt on the bed and the woman wanted me to save it but when I pulled it, the nest split in half," Birkett told Sky News.
"Inside, there were layers and layers of grubs being produced. The pattern was wonderful. The wasps were attacking me as I pulled at it. They were covering my veil. All I could do was keep spraying."
Clearing out the nest took two hours and left around an inch of dead wasps on the floor and the windowsill. The wasps seemed to have come in through a hole in the roof eaves, Birkett told Sky News.
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