Wasp Nests Along the Harlesden Parades
A parade of shops is one long building, and the roofline above it is full of the sheltered voids a nest needs. There is timber and a cavity behind the signboards; above each shopfront the fascia meets brickwork that has been cut and patched over the years for cables, alarms and awning brackets; and at the top of the front wall a parapet usually hides the edge of a flat or shallow roof. An opening the width of a pen is enough for a queen in April, and by August the nest behind it can fill a fair part of that void.
Signage boxes, fascias and awning brackets
Watch the top edge of a sign box, the joint between fascia and brick, and the holes drilled for brackets and cabling. Workers keep to a single entrance, so a steady line disappearing into the same inch of shopfront is the thing to pin down, and it is best done from the pavement rather than from a ladder over a public footway. Where wasps build nests around houses runs through the rest of the list, and a nest reached through brickwork is covered by can wasps nest inside walls?.
Flat roofs and parapets over the rear extensions
Almost every building on a parade has a back addition with a flat felt or asphalt roof, often with a parapet or an upstand where it meets next door. Wasps get in under felt that has lifted at an edge, behind a loose coping stone, and into the boxing round a soil pipe or an extract duct. From an upstairs rear window you can normally follow the flight line without setting foot on the roof, which is the sensible way to work out where they are going.
Air Bricks, Sheds and Hedges in the Terraced Streets
Away from the High Street, the Victorian and Edwardian terraces around Church End give wasps a different set of options. Air bricks in a front wall or under a bay open into voids behind them, ridge and verge tiles work loose, and where a roof has been re-covered piecemeal the edge detail is rarely tight. Small back gardens supply the usual sheds, thick hedges and stacked pots. Wasps rising from a hole in a lawn or at the edge of a path are a ground nest, treated at the same £90 fixed price, and what to do about a ground nest says what to keep away from it.
Winged insects pouring out of a crack between paving slabs for an hour on one close afternoon are flying ants rather than wasps. Scrabbling above a bedroom ceiling, with a hole at the roof edge that keeps getting wider, points to squirrels. The signs of an active wasp nest set out the difference.
Reaching a Nest on Someone Else's Part of the Building
In a flat over a shop or a converted terrace, the entrance is often not on the part of the building you control: above the shop's awning, out on the back roof behind the unit downstairs, or in a parapet that belongs to the freeholder. Tell the business or the building owner early and say exactly where the wasps go in, because opening a side gate, a yard or a roof hatch has to be arranged with whoever holds the keys. The Pest Control Harlesden page sets out how these buildings are usually divided up.
What to tell us when you book
- Which part of the building the wasps enter: fascia, sign box, parapet, flat roof, air brick, shed or ground
- Roughly how high the entrance is, and whether you can see it from one of your own windows
- Whether a shop or building owner has to unlock a gate, a yard or a roof hatch for us
- Whether anyone at home has had a bad reaction to a sting before
Until the visit, keep the windows on that side shut, stay off the flat roof, and leave the entrance untouched. Signs of a severe allergic reaction after a sting mean calling 999.
After the Nest Has Been Treated
Foragers that were out when the nest was treated come back to an entrance they still recognise, so wasps around it for a while afterwards are normal rather than a sign that nothing has happened. Leave the gap open for now: sealing a fascia joint or bedding a coping back down belongs to the winter, once the season is over. If there is still a working nest within 30 days we return at no extra cost, and will wasps return after treatment? describes what the following days usually look like.
Making the Same Gap Less Inviting Next Spring
No building can be made wasp-proof, though a few winter jobs close off the easiest openings. Nests elsewhere in the borough are covered by Wasp Nest Removal Brent, and the parades in neighbouring Stonebridge have the same roofline to watch.
- Once the nest is dead, have a roofer deal with the fascia joint, loose tiles and any lifted felt at the flat roof edge
- Mesh air bricks that open into a void, without reducing the airflow they are there to provide
- From April, look along the parapet, behind the sign and inside the shed for a small grey ball the size of a golf ball
- Keep the shed shut, trim hedges before midsummer, and rinse cans and bottles before they go outside
