I have a deep and abiding love for all living creatures on God's beautiful Earth. And while some creatures scare me, creep me out, or are just plain gross, I still respect them for their place in the Ecosystem. Spiders, for instance, scare me, but I appreciate that they help control the mosquito population ,so I don't kill them. And hornets, also eat several other types of bugs. Yea for them. And generally, hornets and wasps make their nests in trees and other such places away from humans, and therefore, should be left to do their part for nature. That is, until they invade my porch. If they had made their nests in the trees around my apartment, I would have left them alone. But it was not to be. I was dog-sitting for several weeks in a row recently, and was away from my humble abode. Upon returning, I noticed a strange shape poking out from the corner of the porch, right next to my front door. Make that my ONLY door. I, being the independent woman that I am, went in for a closer look and came face to face with several stinging bugs of the wasp variety. Maybe they are hornets, or maybe their wasps. I dunno. For my purposes, I'll call them wasps. I gingerly take a few steps back and then flee through my front door, slamming it behind me as though I am keeping out all the living dead. I decide that wasp nest must come down, seeing as it is right next to my front and only door. If I had a back door or alternate way of entering and exiting, I would have taken more time in calling the exterminator. But me, being the independent woman that I am, decided I could take it down myself. Me, take down a wasp nest? No problem, I've done it before. So, armed with my wasp killer spray and my protective outerwear, I wait for dusk. This is because dusk is when the wasps are least active and are more likely to all be inside the nest, and not buzzing around it, waiting to kill me. Now the key with wasp or hornet nest removal is to make sure there is only one nest. If you spray the one nest, the bees will smell the poison, get mad, and come out to attack the source of the poison. This doesn't matter if there is only one nest, because they'll die on their way out as they come in contact with the poison. But if there is more than one nest, this is where the problem is. As you are spraying one nest, the wasps in the other nests will smell the poison and start to attack. And even with protective outerwear, this can still mean hospitalization for the mean old wasp killer. So as I am taking my postition for maximum wasp killer spray action, I happen to notice another odd shaped object poking out from a hidden compartment in my porch ceiling. I had thought I had looked over all of the porch, but there, perched high and hidden, was another nest! Being the independent woman that I am, I went in for a closer look and discovered 4 more nests in there! So me in my hazmat suit again took a few steps back, hid the can of poison behind me so that no little wasps noticed, and fled back to my apartment. So, as it turns out, this is a job for the professionals. Now the problem with professionals is that they are often very busy and cannot come and take care of the problem for a few days. Sure enough, this was the problem. Which meant that for the next 5 days, me and my little wasps were going to have to co-exist. The great thing about wasps is that they only attack if you swat at them, or try to spray them. So as long as I didn't swat them or spray them, they graciously allowed me to go to and from my apartment without attacking me. So for the next 5 days, I gingerly walked through my porch, took out my keys, looked over to see all the wasps staring at me, and then entered my apartment. My porch ceiling, where the nests were hanging, is not very high, and I am rather tall, so as I unlocked or locked my door everyday, me and the wasps were right at eye level. Creepy, I know. Some have asked how I could have possibly walked through a host of wasps nest everyday. And my answer is that I am an independent woman with little fear, and I have a knack for wasp-whispering. The truth is, I have only one door. That's one way in and one way out. Finally, the wasp people came, took down those wasps while I was at work, and I returned home, hoping to jubilantly walk through my porch without worry of upsetting any little worker bees. Yes, most of the nests were gone, but upon closer inspection, I found one small nest that the wasp people failed to find (even though I left them a diagram of all nests. Whatever). So me, being the independent woman that I am, put on my protective outer wear, grabbed my can of wasp killer, and took down the last of the little wasp army. Now as I said, I generally love most creatures and feel a twinge of guilt and saddness when I willingly kill anything. But that guilt and sadness doesn't stop me, and it didn't stop me this time. It was me against the wasp, and I am proud to say, I won! | 
