This Just Pisses Me Off

Poor little dead wasps.

I like wasps. Call me crazy. Everyone does, and everyone tells me how wasps are going to sting me and how they've (the people not the wasps) been stung so many times and blah, blah, blah. I dont care. I like wasps. They don't sting me. They pollinate my garden, prey on caterpillars that eat my plants and just generally amuse and delight me. When we moved into this house over a year ago we found a paper wasp nest over the patio. B. wanted to get rid of it initially but I convinced him to let the wasps have a chance. After all, they were here before we were I reasoned. I told B. that if even one wasp so much as gave him a funny look we could get rid of them and i wouldn't complain. For over a year we lived here peacefully with our wasps. We hang out on our patio all the time and no wasp ever made so much as a buzz in our direction. They went about their business and we went about ours.

One of my wasps eating a grasshopper.

So when we chose our pest control company I chose Chem Free because they claimed to use as few chemicals (made from organic compounds) as possible and to be proponents of beneficial insects. I spent a good half hour at our original consultation telling the guy they were not to touch my wasps and bees and spiders! The guy made all kinds of notes on my files about leaving everything but the roaches in peace, and for several months everything was dandy. Then someone at Chem Free erased the notes on my file and tragedy occurred.

The following is an except from my Yelp review. I just cant get over what happened. I feel So bad for my peaceful little wasps and my back porch still reeks of nasty bug spray which I'm willing to bet anything is NOT organic.

"***Update- A TRAGEDY OCCURS***

Arrrgghhhh! So after all my glowing reviews the Chem Free guy showed up today (one we haven't had before) and treated my house/yard. When he came to sum it all up for me he mentioned the wasp nest out back. "Oh no!" I gasped. 'You didn't spray it did you?!"

He had.

I felt TERRIBLE! It wasn't the technician's fault and he seemed genuinely sorry (horrified even) that the mistake had occurred, but the deed was done and my back yard is littered with little corpses. I feel SO badly, I made a bargain with those wasps, as long as they were sweet and gentle and bothered no one, they could stay in their home. They were living here before me after all. they kept their end of the bargain and I (inadvertently) had them destroyed. All the wasps in the neighborhood are saying to each other, "Hmmm white woman speaks with forked tongue."

I called the company and complained to a manager. There had been BIG notes on my account that said to leave the wasps and bees alone and somehow those had been removed or lost. The manager was also genuinely sorry about the mistake and said she would be sure to put the notes back on my account. But i still feel compelled to lower the stars on my review A LOT! I mean the reason I called this company in the first place was to keep my beneficial insects safe and now my pollination army lies in shambles and I am left to sweep up their sad little bodies. "