Decks, Gutters, and Wasps (Oh My!)

I don't see what the attraction is in a deck. When we were house hunting, the ads and a variety of real-estate agents would wax eloquent about the beautiful deck on the house. I see a deck as something else to take care of. It needs to be stained and sealed periodically. The screws have to be tightened. It needs to be shoveled free of snow in the winter. What's so great about a deck? I could sit in the backyard on the lawn, and there's a lot less care needed for a lawn. Lawns are nice. Patios are too. Decks take work.

But, nevertheless, we ended up with a deck. Okay, fine.

We have wasps. Can't figure out where they're coming from. After some web-researching, I discovered that wasps often like to build their nests on the underside of wood decks. The only real solution seems to be to crawl under the deck (if that's possible) or take up the boards until you can discover the location of the wasp nest. Oh, good gravy! When we had wasps at the parsonage, you just had to keep knocking down their nests and destroying them. But when you did so, three weeks later you'd have to do it again. That's one thing when the wasp nests are out in the open, under the eaves of the house. However, if we have to take up deck-boards repeatedly through the summer, this is not going to be a happy thing! Another strike against decks.

However, today I think I may have figured out something. Maybe they're hiding in the gutters. We have the weirdest gutter-guards I've ever seen. After checking with my local home-owner mentor, I decided the gutter-guards were headed for the trash. Andrew eliminated a lot of them and we set them out for the garbage man today. Now I'm filling up the garbage can again from yankin' this weird steel-wool stuff out of the gutters. And I found lots of dead wasps. And then I found several abandoned nests. Then I found one very small new and growing nest. I betcha as more of the gutter-guards get pulled out, we find more wasps. (Note to self: do not give this job to the son who is horribly allergic to bug bites.)