Fighting the good fight.

Need advice on yellow jacket control? How convenient! Here you go!

My battle with the yellow jackets by our house continues. The trap I put up on Friday is 4/5 full, and I've asked Sean to empty it. I am not touching that thing, dead or not. I also put out two other traps - one disposable Rescue trap from the Do It Center (with bait, cranberry juice and water), and another Raid trap from Target.

Don't get the Raid traps.

They don't work. I put it out Saturday, and it hasn't attracted much of anything.

I put out the Do It Center trap last night about 5:30pm, and by 6pm it had a bunch of yellow jackets trapped. Encouraging, but also discouraging if you think about the fact that our main trap has already gotten over 100 yellow jackets and there are still enough to swarm the new trap.

So, I did some recon.

My friend sent me this article about yellow jackets, and I've been reading up. I tried to watch for where they were coming from. Because really, there will be no getting rid of them until the entire nest has been removed. And those things? Can be huge.

Yellow jackets nest in the hills. In the dirt. So, once they are in, they are hard to get rid of. I believe that I've figured out sort of where they're coming from, though it could be wishful thinking. I think they're under our lower deck.

So, I talked to my landlady, and I researched some names of exterminators. Our new upstairs neighbor (not the one who is always on the phone) said that sometimes the exterminators will get rid of them for you for free the first time. I'm crossing my fingers, but my landlady did say that she'd pay for the exterminator.

I just don't feel that I can have a housewarming until they are gone. I don't want to have kids around the yellow jackets. We don't have enough room in our house for everyone. And we have these awesome decks that are pretty much going to waste!

So, my quest to rid our house of yellow jackets will continue. Maybe when they're gone, I can work on some of the bugs.