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My car, the mobile insect haven
Apr. 20th, 2007 01:54 pmApparently there is something about my '97 Neon that makes it an irresistible place for social insects to set up shop.
About a year ago, I had what appeared to be a colony of ants living in the car. I never saw any of them within the passenger cabin (and believe me, I looked), but every time I opened the driver's side door, there'd be a trail of them marching along the bottom of the doorjamb. I couldn't figure out where they were headed from there; my best guess was that they'd holed up somewhere under the hood. This was mildly distressing as I wasn't sure which parts of my engine they might be eating through, and there didn't seem to be a practical way to get ant baits set up--but fortunately, after a few weeks they disappeared on their own.
Today, I got out of the car and discovered a wasp building a nest in the space right under the rear door hinge--just where you'd think the front door would crush it when it closed, but apparently there's actually a gap there. The wasp wasn't at all fazed when I slammed the door experimentally, or when I knelt down and blew on it; all it did was hunker down behind the nest in a position it didn't appear the least bit prepared to vacate. Clearly, more drastic measures were in order.
Amusingly enough, I seem to have got the idea that it is stupid to poke at wasps' nests with sticks so deeply engrained in me that even reminding myself that I was pretty sure I could dodge one wasp didn't quite overcome my nervousness at the thought of actually trying this. The thought of what I'd be facing if the eggs I thought I'd spotted there actually were allowed to hatch, however, proved a slightly better motivator. Fortunately, not only did the nest fall away with fairly little poking, but the wasp fell with it and appeared for the moment too stunned to seek revenge. Just to be on the safe side, though, I dropped the stick, slammed the car door, and walked off with some haste.
Sadly, when I returned an hour or two later to investigate the nest sans wasp (I was curious to see just how many cells this wasp had actually had the chance to build, and whether those really were eggs I'd seen), it appeared to have vanished. Best I can guess is that someone came along and spotted it and was seized with a similar investigative urge, and summarily made off with it without giving one thought to my prior claim as the mighty nest-knocker-downer.
*shakes fist impotently at nest thief*
About a year ago, I had what appeared to be a colony of ants living in the car. I never saw any of them within the passenger cabin (and believe me, I looked), but every time I opened the driver's side door, there'd be a trail of them marching along the bottom of the doorjamb. I couldn't figure out where they were headed from there; my best guess was that they'd holed up somewhere under the hood. This was mildly distressing as I wasn't sure which parts of my engine they might be eating through, and there didn't seem to be a practical way to get ant baits set up--but fortunately, after a few weeks they disappeared on their own.
Today, I got out of the car and discovered a wasp building a nest in the space right under the rear door hinge--just where you'd think the front door would crush it when it closed, but apparently there's actually a gap there. The wasp wasn't at all fazed when I slammed the door experimentally, or when I knelt down and blew on it; all it did was hunker down behind the nest in a position it didn't appear the least bit prepared to vacate. Clearly, more drastic measures were in order.
Amusingly enough, I seem to have got the idea that it is stupid to poke at wasps' nests with sticks so deeply engrained in me that even reminding myself that I was pretty sure I could dodge one wasp didn't quite overcome my nervousness at the thought of actually trying this. The thought of what I'd be facing if the eggs I thought I'd spotted there actually were allowed to hatch, however, proved a slightly better motivator. Fortunately, not only did the nest fall away with fairly little poking, but the wasp fell with it and appeared for the moment too stunned to seek revenge. Just to be on the safe side, though, I dropped the stick, slammed the car door, and walked off with some haste.
Sadly, when I returned an hour or two later to investigate the nest sans wasp (I was curious to see just how many cells this wasp had actually had the chance to build, and whether those really were eggs I'd seen), it appeared to have vanished. Best I can guess is that someone came along and spotted it and was seized with a similar investigative urge, and summarily made off with it without giving one thought to my prior claim as the mighty nest-knocker-downer.
*shakes fist impotently at nest thief*
