Why Are Wasps Repeatedly Flying Into the Roof of My Saint Ives Home?

When wasps repeatedly fly into your roof, the nest is rarely visible. What you can see are the traffic and the clues. Working through them tells you whether it really is a nest, and how far along it might be. In Saint Ives, where the older core has plenty of houses with deep roofs and awkward eaves, the clues are often more reliable than a view from the street.

Outside

• Wasps arriving and leaving in a steady line at one gap, particularly from mid-morning to late afternoon
• Wasps landing heavy on the approach and lighter on the way out
• A greyish, paper-like fragment or dust below the gap
• Wasps scraping at weathered wood on a fence, shed or fascia

Inside

These are the ones that tend to prompt a call:

• A faint buzzing or rustling in a ceiling or loft that gets louder on warm days
• Wasps at an upstairs window that is closed, or one or two dead wasps on the sill every morning
• A brown stain spreading on a ceiling, which can come from a nest touching the plaster
• Wasps around a light fitting or loft hatch

Riverside homes and gardens

Gardens close to the river tend to have plenty of vegetation, fruit trees and sheds. Wasps nest in all of them as well as in roofs, so it is worth checking whether the wasps going into your roof are the only colony. Sometimes the activity you notice is from a different nest altogether, such as one in a hedge or the ground.

How serious is it?

A single entrance with moderate traffic in June is a small nest. Heavy traffic in August is a large one. The more signs you see inside the house, the more likely it is that the colony has outgrown its space.

Treatment in Saint Ives

We apply an insecticidal dust at the entrance, which the wasps carry into the colony. The nest in a loft is not removed, because it does not need to be: once the colony is gone, the nest dries and is not reused. Wasp nest removal in Saint Ives is £90, fixed and guaranteed, and the cost guide sets out what that includes.

Older Saint Ives houses often have loft spaces with timbers that have been in place for generations, which wasps find attractive for the same reason a person would: dry, quiet and undisturbed. If you have a deep roof with a chimney stack, say so when you contact us, as the stack is a common route in.

If you have noticed any of the signs above, call 01223 902388 or message us on WhatsApp with the room and the side of the house.