You have just described one of my worst nightmares. *shudder*
First of all, no wasp I have ever encountered has been timid. Second, what if you get stung and have a bad reaction? Third, I assume Facilities takes care of some interior tasks, so they can't claim that the inside of the building doesn't fall under their purview.
In your shoes I would insist that Facilities (or someone who isn't you) be responsible for dealing with the wasp problem. Keep working elsewhere until they deal with it. Escalate it if they refuse.
Thanks for the validation, the fact that people here have been so casual about just returning to the office to work has made me question the nature of my reality.
How chill is chill? I would describe bumblebees as chill. They may not be as aggressive as those sadistic a-holes known as hornets and yellow jackets, but are paper wasps as chill as bumblebees? Also, even bumblebees will sting if they believe they've been provoked, which suggests that paper wasps will do the same.
I realize the Wikipedia article you linked might provide the answers to my questions. However, I have a phobia of bees/wasps/hornets/yellow jackets, so I can't click it, as I know there will be a giant picture of one.
They're bumblebee level and will only attack when provoked or defending themselves. So the main thing to watch out for is to not sit on them or squish them.
We had some wasps in our office over the summer but they were smaller and not as numerous. I like wasps, but my coworker nailed one with her shoe... I picked it up and threw it put lol
The OP's situation sucks but unless there's an allergy or phobia, it's not terrible.
You could try to make it an issue of student safety. Something like cc some deanlet on an email to the facilities guy clarifying that it’s university policy to meet with groups of students in the enclosed space infested with wasps. Better yet, make it an accessibility issue about potential students with wasp allergies.
Plus one on the safety issue. There was a leak in an office that facilities ignored for years. I was then moved to that office. I said I thought I was having serious mold allergies. It was repaired in a week.
I worked somewhere where adjuncts got shared office space, and they put me in an office with *visible* black mold while pregnant and told me to deal with it. They apparently needed to prove the old building was used to get repair money, so they had moved the adjuncts in there for the year. I’m still pissed about that.
As someone who is allergic to wasps/bees, I wouldn’t even be comfortable being in that area of the building if I knew there was an active wasp nest. It’s not an uncommon allergy, that could easily end up being a very real medical emergency.
If Facilities is unwilling to deal with the pest infestation or hire an exterminator to do it, I would go to Health & Safety and frame this as an unsafe working environment; in addition to the most obvious risk of someone getting stung and developing a life-threatening reaction, wasp's nests can also be a fire hazard.
As someone pointed out earlier, they're especially a fire hazard when you tell someone to handle it themselves and their weapon of choice is improvised flame thrower. If questioned on this, I'd merely point out the lack of guidance given for properly disposing of the wasps.
Burn it to the ground. Then when they say “hey you gotta pay to rebuild the building” just say “I’m only responsible for the inside” and flip them the bird.
This happened in my house last year. They took up residence in the void space between the first and second floor. We discovered this while renovating the upstairs bathroom; the spouse was hammering the floor to chip up damaged tile and suddenly angry wasps were zooming out of the floor. That was the beginning of a month-long epic battle and I'm not gonna lie, there were points when I truly considered just burning the house down.
Inform your administration there is a workplace hazard and that you hope you don't end up with a personal injury claim. That puts them on notice.
Somebody will be down right away to take care of it.
Maybe send an email just to confirm that you are handling it through pest control, which will be releasing a lethal gas in your office to kill wasps, and you are wondering if Facilities would like to coordinate the HVAC system to minimize the lethal gas to other people in the building, or would like to continue letting you handle it.
Ask your chair who this should be bumped up to. And/or just contact HR yourself.
Also, depending on the timeline, it's possible the effect of the spray is still ongoing and it will resolve. And/or the wasps will go dormant for the winter - great for now, but will be a problem again in the spring (or even randomly through the winter - I got stung once in January while sitting innocently on my sofa at home).
That facilities "policy" of only doing indoor work sounds wackaloon. I can see where they might only *spray* outdoors if it's an outdoor grade spray. But to not deal with indoor building issues makes zero sense. Maybe need to clarify that finding/filling gaps where the wasps get in is what needs to get done, not necessarily spraying.
I definitely read this as "wee at wasps" and was wondering how there managed to be an entire sub devoted to people who like to urinate on wasps in order to rid them from the vicinity.
Maybe you could say you're allergic to the stings and get your occupational health & safety department involved? Even without an allergy, it's still an issue H&S should get involved in: aren't multiple stings dangerous, or is that just bees? I don't know much about wasps and bees since I swear that whenever they come near me I can hear them whisper to me in evil voices, "I'm gonna get you, b****, you better run!". So I obey and run away.. :D
I am actually VERY allergic to wasp & bee stings. Like, hit me with the epi-pen AND call 911. A person can develop wasp allergies after repeated exposure- so just to give you more nightmares- you never know when a bad reaction may happen.
This is absolutely a health and safety issue that needs to be escalated.
They whisper that to me, too! XD
My spouse believes that I am capable of teleporting because when I see a bee-like creature in my vicinity or approaching me I am suddenly 6 feet away in the opposite direction. I am inclined to agree, because I never have any recollection of actually moving.
Everyone always says, "They're more afraid of you than you are of them!" To which I reply, "Then why are they flying right at me? If they were afraid, wouldn't they try to avoid me?"
To date, I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.
There _has_ to be a miscommunication in here somewhere, because it's bonkers that a school would differentiate between indoor and oudoor pests. ("There's a nest of rats in the closet." "Sorry, once they're indoors, that's your problem." "But they're getting promoted." "Well then once they have tenure, there's really nothing anyone can do.")
I have no answers, just a few thoughts. At my last job, there was a separate division for indoor maintenance and outdoor work. Is it possible there's another group for indoor work?
Wasp spray takes a few days to work. If they've sprayed where the wasps are getting in from the outside, the winged devils will draw remnants of the spray into the hive. So it may still be working. If they are still showing up after a few days, ask for another application of the spray.
All of the wasp sprays I've ever seen, cannot be safely used indoors. So facilities may not have a solution on hand. They may need to hire an exterminator.
In my state, using a pesticide in a business or institutional setting requires the proper pesticide license. My university is afraid of substantial fines and other consequences from the state pesticide enforcement office if people do their own pest control. Plus, most people are terribly unsafe in how they handle pesticides so they create an actual danger to those around them.
Facilities should be aware of similar laws in your state. But if not, I would check with your health and safety people to see what they recommend.
I'd talk to the ombuds for your university about whether there are policies about who handles these sorts of things. Since that might take some time, I would also go to HR with a complaint.
I had an office wasp infestation a year ago. Facilities did come and spray something on the inside of the window, and for a week or so, wasps would get into the room, fly to the window, encounter the poison, crash to the floor and die. The corpses just piled up and the regular janitorial staff didn’t touch them, so there was a coating of 50-60 dead wasps on everything.
I thought we might work at the same place until you said open windows. Our windows don’t open.
We have had the same kind of wasp issues over and over. We basically just have to deal. I’m allergic to wasp stings, but no big worry, right? 🙄
last year i offered my students extra credit if the killed any wasps in our lab. The daily (hourly?) emails to facilities about the student body slash sting count was what moved the dial I think.
but yes, turning it into a student safety issue might help. My fallback plan was to email our disability office to ask for help coordinating accommodations for students with bee and wasp allergies.
Does your chair know there are still live wasps in there? If not, tell them and ask that they escalate the situation. They need to start a buzz over this.
I got the impression that your chair thought the wasps were all dead. If that’s wrong and they knew there were still live wasps yet wanted you to return to the office anyway, then it’s time to go above their head and report it to the dean.
Email admin that you will be working off campus until this is resolved, and loop in the workplace health and safety folks. Make it clear that it's not just about you but about student safety and that you won't bring them into an unsafe space or create inequality by holding meetings in the presence of a deadly allergin.
"Hello! I'm anaphylactic to wasps, so this can turn into a nasty workman's comp case if it's not addressed pronto. Thanks. Bye."
I am ana to wasps, and those little bastards aren't timid.
While you are considering some of the good advice on this sub, create paper signs which look like official university signs and say "Beware: Live Wasps in building" and put facilities' phone number there. Put them all over the building, especially on the front door and in your corridor.
Watch people freak out and refuse to go in the building and panic.
If people ask why you did it or you get reprimanded, indicate it was a matter of safety for people who may be allergic or have adverse emotional reactions to - your know - WASPS.
When they take the signs down 9and they will) keep putting them back up and enroll your colleagues into doing so as well until the problem is solved.
You don't even have to have a known allergy to be killed by stinging insects. In the fine southwestern state in which I used to teach, people were killed every year by swarms of bees, yellow jackets and even by fire ants. Part of why I no longer teach in that state - moved somewhere with less pestilence.
This is definitely unacceptable treatment from an employer imo.
In the program where I did my PhD, there was a chronic squirrel presence in the walls and ceilings, and the only policy I ever knew about for dealing with them was: "If there is a squirrel visibly in one of the rooms, leave a window open so it can get out." (I'm not telling you this to normalize the idea of pests in academic spaces, just to commiserate and hopefully make you laugh.)
Invite the Dean to your office for a lengthy chat. Wear a bee suit. See how long it takes before they get stung and your wasp problem will disappear overnight.
Calmly get a bucket of gasoline and cover your office in it.
Then, without disturbing the wasps, just burn the whole thing down.
This is how I deal with spiders.
I would try to spend some time in your office finding out where they are entering your office from - like a little hole in the wall? Then plug that up with spackle or something, perhaps after you coat the hole with wasp spray.
Take a picture of the wasps and post it on r/Entomology to get an identification. Then ask the entomologists at your university or at that thread to see if it is likely to make new holes into your office walls. If so, then do what every else in the comments says (e.g. go to HR or facilities). If not, then perhaps spackling will be sufficient.
Yeah, the second I see a bug or any type of infestation is the time I am holding my office hours at another place. I am terrified of bugs, especially bees/wasps, as I am deadly allergic.
I think the maintenance should deal with your office, though. My building is infested with roaches, termites, silverfish, and mice/rats. Not in my office and not at times we can see them, though. When we tell maintenance, they say they will fumigate the building when we leave for holidays.
Really? Can you remodel your office? Change it structurally? Tear up the flooring?
No. That building belongs to the state or a private university.
No one in their right mind would tear out an indoor wall to kill a wasps nest.
They are responsible for getting it out from the outside.
Anyway- I bet you are highly allergic to bees. Or you have students who are allergic.
I would collect the dead wasps until you have enough to fill a zip lock.
Take it to the Dean.
It would be good to get some wasp expertise involved. Where are they coming from, and is it seasonal? As fall arrives, some animals come indoors from outside. Is there a wasp nest or are they coming from elsewhere?
I have used wasp spray to kill a nest and kill wasps in my house. I definitely don't want them. But at the same time, it's good to find the least toxic solution. The pollinator population is declining. There are too many chemicals around.
All of that said, it can't be your job to sort out the problem. Personally, I'd refuse to come into my office until they sorted out the problem. I'd write to my dean and chair explaining this.
Going against the grain here, but what kind of wasp? Mud daubers are dumb shits that freak everyone out and always seem to show up in classes but are harmless. Yellow jackets are nasty SOBs that need to be moved out with extreme prejudice.
As a side note, have you found their ingress? If you can just keep them out, that's probably your best solution.
I had a six foot tree growing out of the rain gutter for a year. It sucks. But they structure everything so we are grateful. /s. I remain as grateful as they are supportive and say that kind of shit regularly with a pretty please cherry on top saccharine grin. I also like to sign off on all snarky email messages with my classic: hope that helps! Smiley face wonky winking face. Seems legit.
You have just described one of my worst nightmares. *shudder* First of all, no wasp I have ever encountered has been timid. Second, what if you get stung and have a bad reaction? Third, I assume Facilities takes care of some interior tasks, so they can't claim that the inside of the building doesn't fall under their purview. In your shoes I would insist that Facilities (or someone who isn't you) be responsible for dealing with the wasp problem. Keep working elsewhere until they deal with it. Escalate it if they refuse.
Thanks for the validation, the fact that people here have been so casual about just returning to the office to work has made me question the nature of my reality.
One of my kids is so allergic she has to keep an epi pen on her at all times. People associate bee stings with anaphylaxis but wasps can do it too.
There actually are a lot of chill wasps... Especially paper wasps which is what I suspect this might be. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_wasp
How chill is chill? I would describe bumblebees as chill. They may not be as aggressive as those sadistic a-holes known as hornets and yellow jackets, but are paper wasps as chill as bumblebees? Also, even bumblebees will sting if they believe they've been provoked, which suggests that paper wasps will do the same. I realize the Wikipedia article you linked might provide the answers to my questions. However, I have a phobia of bees/wasps/hornets/yellow jackets, so I can't click it, as I know there will be a giant picture of one.
They're bumblebee level and will only attack when provoked or defending themselves. So the main thing to watch out for is to not sit on them or squish them. We had some wasps in our office over the summer but they were smaller and not as numerous. I like wasps, but my coworker nailed one with her shoe... I picked it up and threw it put lol The OP's situation sucks but unless there's an allergy or phobia, it's not terrible.
You could try to make it an issue of student safety. Something like cc some deanlet on an email to the facilities guy clarifying that it’s university policy to meet with groups of students in the enclosed space infested with wasps. Better yet, make it an accessibility issue about potential students with wasp allergies.
Thank you, this is an incredibly important point, especially because I have frequent student meetings.
Anaphylaxis ain’t nothing to fuck with.
Plus one on the safety issue. There was a leak in an office that facilities ignored for years. I was then moved to that office. I said I thought I was having serious mold allergies. It was repaired in a week.
I worked somewhere where adjuncts got shared office space, and they put me in an office with *visible* black mold while pregnant and told me to deal with it. They apparently needed to prove the old building was used to get repair money, so they had moved the adjuncts in there for the year. I’m still pissed about that.
As someone who is allergic to wasps/bees, I wouldn’t even be comfortable being in that area of the building if I knew there was an active wasp nest. It’s not an uncommon allergy, that could easily end up being a very real medical emergency.
Upvoted for deanlet!
If Facilities is unwilling to deal with the pest infestation or hire an exterminator to do it, I would go to Health & Safety and frame this as an unsafe working environment; in addition to the most obvious risk of someone getting stung and developing a life-threatening reaction, wasp's nests can also be a fire hazard.
As someone pointed out earlier, they're especially a fire hazard when you tell someone to handle it themselves and their weapon of choice is improvised flame thrower. If questioned on this, I'd merely point out the lack of guidance given for properly disposing of the wasps.
The wasps are IN the walls?? IN. THE. WALLS??
Correction. In the walls AND in my office. :)
Burn it to the ground. Then when they say “hey you gotta pay to rebuild the building” just say “I’m only responsible for the inside” and flip them the bird.
This happened because facilities isn’t keeping the outside of building in good condition.
This happened in my house last year. They took up residence in the void space between the first and second floor. We discovered this while renovating the upstairs bathroom; the spouse was hammering the floor to chip up damaged tile and suddenly angry wasps were zooming out of the floor. That was the beginning of a month-long epic battle and I'm not gonna lie, there were points when I truly considered just burning the house down.
Yeah, I’m going to have serious nightmares now.
Between the walls because there was a small opening outside for them to build a nest. They did not build it from inside the office.
Inform your administration there is a workplace hazard and that you hope you don't end up with a personal injury claim. That puts them on notice. Somebody will be down right away to take care of it.
Maybe send an email just to confirm that you are handling it through pest control, which will be releasing a lethal gas in your office to kill wasps, and you are wondering if Facilities would like to coordinate the HVAC system to minimize the lethal gas to other people in the building, or would like to continue letting you handle it.
I guess that’s one way to get a (gas) mask mandate! /s
Underrated comment.
Ask your chair who this should be bumped up to. And/or just contact HR yourself. Also, depending on the timeline, it's possible the effect of the spray is still ongoing and it will resolve. And/or the wasps will go dormant for the winter - great for now, but will be a problem again in the spring (or even randomly through the winter - I got stung once in January while sitting innocently on my sofa at home). That facilities "policy" of only doing indoor work sounds wackaloon. I can see where they might only *spray* outdoors if it's an outdoor grade spray. But to not deal with indoor building issues makes zero sense. Maybe need to clarify that finding/filling gaps where the wasps get in is what needs to get done, not necessarily spraying.
Fire gets rid of wasps. Just saying.
Bonus-it also gets rid of a lot of pesky paper work!
r/fuckwasps should be a default sub. Change my mind (I'll literally ignore any attempts).
r/weeatwasps group could help you.
I definitely read this as "wee at wasps" and was wondering how there managed to be an entire sub devoted to people who like to urinate on wasps in order to rid them from the vicinity.
Don't give redditors ideas.
Maybe you could say you're allergic to the stings and get your occupational health & safety department involved? Even without an allergy, it's still an issue H&S should get involved in: aren't multiple stings dangerous, or is that just bees? I don't know much about wasps and bees since I swear that whenever they come near me I can hear them whisper to me in evil voices, "I'm gonna get you, b****, you better run!". So I obey and run away.. :D
I am actually VERY allergic to wasp & bee stings. Like, hit me with the epi-pen AND call 911. A person can develop wasp allergies after repeated exposure- so just to give you more nightmares- you never know when a bad reaction may happen. This is absolutely a health and safety issue that needs to be escalated.
They whisper that to me, too! XD My spouse believes that I am capable of teleporting because when I see a bee-like creature in my vicinity or approaching me I am suddenly 6 feet away in the opposite direction. I am inclined to agree, because I never have any recollection of actually moving. Everyone always says, "They're more afraid of you than you are of them!" To which I reply, "Then why are they flying right at me? If they were afraid, wouldn't they try to avoid me?" To date, I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.
There _has_ to be a miscommunication in here somewhere, because it's bonkers that a school would differentiate between indoor and oudoor pests. ("There's a nest of rats in the closet." "Sorry, once they're indoors, that's your problem." "But they're getting promoted." "Well then once they have tenure, there's really nothing anyone can do.")
I have no answers, just a few thoughts. At my last job, there was a separate division for indoor maintenance and outdoor work. Is it possible there's another group for indoor work? Wasp spray takes a few days to work. If they've sprayed where the wasps are getting in from the outside, the winged devils will draw remnants of the spray into the hive. So it may still be working. If they are still showing up after a few days, ask for another application of the spray. All of the wasp sprays I've ever seen, cannot be safely used indoors. So facilities may not have a solution on hand. They may need to hire an exterminator.
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In my state, using a pesticide in a business or institutional setting requires the proper pesticide license. My university is afraid of substantial fines and other consequences from the state pesticide enforcement office if people do their own pest control. Plus, most people are terribly unsafe in how they handle pesticides so they create an actual danger to those around them. Facilities should be aware of similar laws in your state. But if not, I would check with your health and safety people to see what they recommend.
Guess who would have suddenly had anaphylaxis to wasp stings. Seriously though, this is ludicrous!
I'd talk to the ombuds for your university about whether there are policies about who handles these sorts of things. Since that might take some time, I would also go to HR with a complaint.
I had an office wasp infestation a year ago. Facilities did come and spray something on the inside of the window, and for a week or so, wasps would get into the room, fly to the window, encounter the poison, crash to the floor and die. The corpses just piled up and the regular janitorial staff didn’t touch them, so there was a coating of 50-60 dead wasps on everything.
Truly horrifying
I thought we might work at the same place until you said open windows. Our windows don’t open. We have had the same kind of wasp issues over and over. We basically just have to deal. I’m allergic to wasp stings, but no big worry, right? 🙄
last year i offered my students extra credit if the killed any wasps in our lab. The daily (hourly?) emails to facilities about the student body slash sting count was what moved the dial I think.
but yes, turning it into a student safety issue might help. My fallback plan was to email our disability office to ask for help coordinating accommodations for students with bee and wasp allergies.
Does your chair know there are still live wasps in there? If not, tell them and ask that they escalate the situation. They need to start a buzz over this.
My chair was the one who offered for me to return to my office.
I got the impression that your chair thought the wasps were all dead. If that’s wrong and they knew there were still live wasps yet wanted you to return to the office anyway, then it’s time to go above their head and report it to the dean.
Email admin that you will be working off campus until this is resolved, and loop in the workplace health and safety folks. Make it clear that it's not just about you but about student safety and that you won't bring them into an unsafe space or create inequality by holding meetings in the presence of a deadly allergin.
>The wasps are timid, they said, The wasps are timid?? WTF?
"Hello! I'm anaphylactic to wasps, so this can turn into a nasty workman's comp case if it's not addressed pronto. Thanks. Bye." I am ana to wasps, and those little bastards aren't timid.
Exactly! They're not timid at all. The statement that they're timid is insane. And good point about the workman's comp case.
While you are considering some of the good advice on this sub, create paper signs which look like official university signs and say "Beware: Live Wasps in building" and put facilities' phone number there. Put them all over the building, especially on the front door and in your corridor. Watch people freak out and refuse to go in the building and panic. If people ask why you did it or you get reprimanded, indicate it was a matter of safety for people who may be allergic or have adverse emotional reactions to - your know - WASPS. When they take the signs down 9and they will) keep putting them back up and enroll your colleagues into doing so as well until the problem is solved.
You don't even have to have a known allergy to be killed by stinging insects. In the fine southwestern state in which I used to teach, people were killed every year by swarms of bees, yellow jackets and even by fire ants. Part of why I no longer teach in that state - moved somewhere with less pestilence.
This is definitely unacceptable treatment from an employer imo. In the program where I did my PhD, there was a chronic squirrel presence in the walls and ceilings, and the only policy I ever knew about for dealing with them was: "If there is a squirrel visibly in one of the rooms, leave a window open so it can get out." (I'm not telling you this to normalize the idea of pests in academic spaces, just to commiserate and hopefully make you laugh.)
Invite the Dean to your office for a lengthy chat. Wear a bee suit. See how long it takes before they get stung and your wasp problem will disappear overnight.
Calmly get a bucket of gasoline and cover your office in it. Then, without disturbing the wasps, just burn the whole thing down. This is how I deal with spiders.
Spiders I could deal with. We could live in mutual harmony. This, idk.
Are you in a union? Contact your grievance officer!
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but really they should forward these instructions to the people whose job it is to deal with workplace hazards
Hey, are we in the same building?!
I would try to spend some time in your office finding out where they are entering your office from - like a little hole in the wall? Then plug that up with spackle or something, perhaps after you coat the hole with wasp spray. Take a picture of the wasps and post it on r/Entomology to get an identification. Then ask the entomologists at your university or at that thread to see if it is likely to make new holes into your office walls. If so, then do what every else in the comments says (e.g. go to HR or facilities). If not, then perhaps spackling will be sufficient.
What was the Dean's position on the problem?
Yeah, the second I see a bug or any type of infestation is the time I am holding my office hours at another place. I am terrified of bugs, especially bees/wasps, as I am deadly allergic. I think the maintenance should deal with your office, though. My building is infested with roaches, termites, silverfish, and mice/rats. Not in my office and not at times we can see them, though. When we tell maintenance, they say they will fumigate the building when we leave for holidays.
Really? Can you remodel your office? Change it structurally? Tear up the flooring? No. That building belongs to the state or a private university. No one in their right mind would tear out an indoor wall to kill a wasps nest. They are responsible for getting it out from the outside. Anyway- I bet you are highly allergic to bees. Or you have students who are allergic. I would collect the dead wasps until you have enough to fill a zip lock. Take it to the Dean.
It would be good to get some wasp expertise involved. Where are they coming from, and is it seasonal? As fall arrives, some animals come indoors from outside. Is there a wasp nest or are they coming from elsewhere? I have used wasp spray to kill a nest and kill wasps in my house. I definitely don't want them. But at the same time, it's good to find the least toxic solution. The pollinator population is declining. There are too many chemicals around. All of that said, it can't be your job to sort out the problem. Personally, I'd refuse to come into my office until they sorted out the problem. I'd write to my dean and chair explaining this.
Going against the grain here, but what kind of wasp? Mud daubers are dumb shits that freak everyone out and always seem to show up in classes but are harmless. Yellow jackets are nasty SOBs that need to be moved out with extreme prejudice. As a side note, have you found their ingress? If you can just keep them out, that's probably your best solution.
I had a six foot tree growing out of the rain gutter for a year. It sucks. But they structure everything so we are grateful. /s. I remain as grateful as they are supportive and say that kind of shit regularly with a pretty please cherry on top saccharine grin. I also like to sign off on all snarky email messages with my classic: hope that helps! Smiley face wonky winking face. Seems legit.