As summer draws to a close, fall sets in with full flourish! A different set of bugs get active – wasps. These pesky stinging insects like to form nests in opportune spots outside and around your home. Many people are allergic to wasps, yellow-jackets and hornets, and nobody likes to get stung. So it is especially important to get rid of them quickly.

Here are a few ways to prevent wasps from breeding and gathering around your home:

First, keep the area around your free of things that attract insects. Household garbage, leftover picnic food or even open pet food can attract wasps. Seal your trashcans properly and remove nectar and bird food from the garden. Remember, sweet things attract bees and wasps.

Take a walk around your home and check the areas that need repair and maintenance. Broken panels and siding, crevices and soffit gaps are exactly the type of places wasps seek to build nests. Find and fix any gaps around the windows and doors so that unwanted infestations don’t occur. Do a yard check and investigate the potential burrows in the ground that wasps may build. Pay extra attention around rock walls and patio borders. Fill these gaps and holes to keep the wasps out.

You can also buy decorative wasp decoys from most home improvement stores and hang them outside. Paper wasps are territorial and will not build a nest within 200 feet of another nest in the vicinity. If you place a decoy somewhere close to your yard, the real wasps may be deterred.

You could also try wasp traps – store-bought, or just make one yourself. Cut a 2 liter plastic bottle in half, and put the top portion upside down in the bottom portion. Pour about an inch of sweet liquid into it and set it up in an area where yellow jackets or wasps are active.

Lastly, keep your lawn free of food waste and compost piles, if possible. Keep it healthy and mow the grasses as much as possible to make your home environment less appealing to stinging insects and more pleasant for you and your family.

If your have a severe wasp problem or this all sounds like too much work, Brothers Pest Control can help!
Give us a call at (813) 500-4735 or contact us here on the website.