My husband and I purchased our very first home on February 29, 2000. At the time, my husband traveled full time for his job, which meant that he left for O'Hare before I even woke up on Monday mornings, and returned home late Thursday evening. Our first spring in our new home meant adjusting to life as homeowners, but with a husband who was only home three days a week. So all the "man jobs" got done on the weekends or not at all. Three short days to squeeze in grass cutting and lawn maintenance along with all the other fixes and handiwork a husband/new homeowner does.
One weekend while we were in our front yard, I noticed there seemed to be a lot of bees around the garage. I stepped out onto the driveway and watched them fly around to see where they were coming from. I noticed that there were quite a bit more bees flying around above the garage, and that they all seemed to be going to and from a spot where our second story bedroom met our one story garage.
The husband took note and agreed to climb up there and take a look on a weekend in the not too distant future. Sounded like a plan. We finished our yard work for the day, went to bed, and Hubby headed back to the east coast for the week.
One day while he was gone that week, I stood in my bedroom looking down on my empty living room, thinking about how someday it would not be so barren. Our house had a strange feature where there was a huge, open space in our second story bedroom wall, creating a window that looked down over the main level living room.
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| This picture was taken several years after the "bees incident", but you can see the hole in the wall above the living room and see the ceiling fan that was in our bedroom. If you stood there, you could reach up and touch the ceiling. |
As I stood there, I could hear a soft scratching noise. I moved closer to the wall and listened. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. It sounded like someone was softly rubbing continuously on the drywall with their fingernails. I looked at the wall. Then it hit me. I was standing right next to the spot where all the bees had been coming and going from above the garage.
As soon as my husband got home, I brought him immediately to the bedroom and stood him in the same spot and watched him as he listened. Yes, he agreed, it was probably bees. He would come up with a plan to eliminate them. Now something you should know about my husband, he is Mr. Research. Whenever we need to buy something, he's all over the Internet reading product reviews and investigating different options and whatnot. It's great. Whenever I need something new, I know he'll do a great deal of homework so we end up with something great. This applies to projects, too. When we needed to stain the deck for the first time, he read all about the do's and don'ts of deck staining. Needed to install a new hot water heater, Mr. Research got busy reading and installed us a new water heater. So when there are bees living in one of your walls, Mr. Research is not about to just climb up on the roof and start spraying Bee-Be-Gone and hope for the best. And since this didn't seem to be an emergency issue, researching an elimination plan seemed like a great idea.
The weekend came and went, projects got done around the house, and Hubby headed out of town again on Monday. While he was away, he spent some time researching bee removal. A plan was being formulated. When he returned on Thursday, the bee situation had not changed and we proceeded to have an uneventful weekend. We had planned on a small barbecue/housewarming that Saturday, but it had so happened that every person we knew was busy that weekend. So we rescheduled our little gathering for a few weeks later and looked forward to a low-key weekend without any plans. Ahhhhhh.
The bees had other plans.....
