Owning a Home
Owning a home comes with plenty of challenges. When you own your own home and something breaks, you no longer have a landlord to handle the repairs. It is your responsibility. There are plenty of things that can go wrong in a home. One family realized that the hard way.
The Tennessee Family’s Problem
In late September, a Tennessee family started to notice strange sounds coming from the walls in their home. At first, it sounded like scratching, as if something were moving behind the walls. They thought that maybe it was a mouse. Mice often get into the walls. When it starts getting cold outside, mice begin looking for a warm place to stay. The family was worried because when mice get into the walls, they often chew the wires. This can cause serious electrical issues and even a fire.
Humming
The noises behind the walls continued, then the family started hearing a faint buzzing sound coming from behind the wall. When this started, they figured that it wasn’t a mouse behind the walls. Now they believed that it was insects. The family consulted the internet to figure out how to get rid of whatever insect had set up shop behind the walls. They used a DIY bug bomb hoping that it would eradicate the problem. When the bomb did nothing, they decided to call in an expert.
David Glover
David Glover was a seasoned exterminator. He had been working in the pest control business for years and had an excellent track record of solving problems like the ones that the family was having. When the family called him, he suited up and got right to work. Over the years, he had seen just about every type of infestation so he was sure that nothing could shock him.
A Weep Hole
David began inspecting the brick interior of the building. He knew that if there was something in the wall, it had to have found an entry point into the walls. It didn’t take long for him to discover a weep hole, which is a black line between the bricks. He also found a small gap between the brick and the kitchen window.
High-Tech Equipment
David has high-tech equipment that can let him see what is behind a wall without ripping the wall out. One of his devices is an infrared camera. This camera allows him to see heat behind the wall. When he used his camera, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Whatever was behind the brick wall was incredibly enormous.
Precautions
David decided that before he went any further that he would need to take extra precautions. He had a smoker, which would put the pests to sleep. If they had stingers, David didn’t want to see them face to face. He also used some bug repellent. He knew that he had to be careful when dealing with whatever pests were living behind the wall.
Getting a Better Look
David decided to remove one of the bricks in the area to see what type of pest was living there. When he pulled off the first brick, he saw a nest of honey bees. He removed a second brick an then a third. With each brick, he saw that the still couldn’t visualize the entire hive. He didn’t know how many needed to be removed before he could access the hive and get it out of the wall. When he finally exposed the entire colony, he had removed a considerable part of the house’s exterior.
Examining the Hive
David saw that there were 13 capped queen cells and each had a separate virgin queen bee. This told him that this wasn’t just an active hive; it was a thriving hive. Had the family waited to call David for a few more weeks, the hive would have doubled in size. He also noticed a few dead bees on the edges of the colony. He assumed that they were victims of the family’s DIY extermination. They were worker bees. David knew that the bomb not have been powerful enough to take out such a massive hive. This Tennessee family had no idea this was living in their wall, but they wanted it gone. David was going to be the one to do it.
Saving the Bees
David carefully removed combs. When this was done, he started on removing the straggler bees. He wasn’t going to kill off the hive because honeybees are essential. When the bees and the hive were removed, David brought them to a number of honey farms in the area. The beekeepers who ran these farms were thrilled with the new additions to their bee families. The Tennessee family was just happy to have the bees removed. They put their wall back together, and the humming had finally stopped.
