Help ~> I have Wasps on the inside of my Gas Door and I am afaid to use any store bought sprays… Considering it’s so close to the gas!!! The car sat for a couple of months … I am just lucky I have 3/4 of a tank left and thus have time to rid them!! Anyone have a solution!?! Thanks
It will not hurt the car or give cause for safety, as long as you don’t remove the gas cap. Be careful about spraying it on the paint however. Try to make a fog spray between them an you.
I suggest a specific spray for wasps not a general spray. You want to knock them down really fast. In my experience they can make about 10 foot before they are dead. I have never been stung and I have had to kill off several nest over the years. (BTW you can have two cans, one in each hand for faster coverage. )
At dusk or night, when the wasps aren’t active, open the gas door and sprinkle some powdered “Sevin Insecticide” around the entry where they land to crawl in. They will get the powder on their feet, bring it into the nest and lick it off. They’ll all be dead in 1-2 days.
Sevin is available at any garden supply store.
The best spray in he world has pyrethrin (spelling) in it. Once it hits the wasp it will go down faster than a Zero in front of a Mustang in a dog fight. Do not get a national brand like Raid or Black Flag, it’s like spraying water. I found the best uses pyretrin and sprays at least 20 feet, pleasantly scented and found a farm stores ( tractor supply, farm king, orschlen bros, etc).
Do not open the gas door. Just stand back and spray around the door. This will prevent the wasps from exiting to fast and they will come in contact with the spray.
I never tried permethrin, but I can imagine it works quite well. It’s the active ingredient in the lice hair shampoo. It’s also what the mosquito nets are soaked with in Africa to protect against malaria.
It is oil from Mum’s and that means its natural and not harmful to people or pets.
Wasps go down faster than a Clinton at an impeachment.
So you’re saying it’s not that effective?
You may be able to track down an engineer that worked for the now defunct American Motors Corporation. American Motors was formed with the merger of Nash and Hudson companies back in 1954. Hudsons were infested with both Wasps and Hornets. The engineers at American Motors managed to exterminate the Wasps right away. They thought that they had killed off the Hornets as well, but the Hornets just remained dormant until about 1970 when Hornets appeared again. I think that the Hornets were finally killed off when American Motors was bought by Chrysler Corporation.
If you can’t track down an American Motors engineer to find out how he or she eliminated the Wasps, follow the advice of the other responses to your post.
Just buy whatever spray is deadliest (get a couple of cans), put on some heavy gloves, and hose the crap out of the space where they’re getting in. The chemicals in the spray won’t react at all with gasoline. There is no danger of explosion or hurting your car, but clean off painted surfaces as soon as you can. As long as your gas cap is on, there’s no danger of the spray even mixing with the gas, not that it would do anything. Once it seems somewhat safe, dive in and flip the lid open, and repeat the treatment. Then clean up with water and wipe any spray from your paint job.
I had wasps build a nest behind the side mirror of a car I didn’t drive for about 6 months. I went out to start it, it started a bit reluctantly, but OK, then I noticed a lot of wasps buzzing around me. I retreated from the car and saw them crawling out from behind the mirror glass in a line as I watched in horror. Unfortunately I had to muster my courage, dash in and grab my keys from the ignition so I could get back into the apartment I was living in at the time. I grabbed a can of Raid Wasp & Hornet killer and blasted behind the mirror. No more problem within 3 minutes.
Just be careful!
I wonder if there is anyone else on the BBS tonight who got it…
My first car was a Hudson Hornet. It was 11. I was 15. It would do 112 MPH down hill with a tailwind on a good set of used cotton bias ply tires. I should be on that TV show “I shouldn’t be alive”.
In those days that engineer was almost certain to be a HE. When my wife entered university to study engineering in the late '60s, she was told by an elderly male professor “There is no place in engineering for women”. He’d be handed his head on a platter if he said that today. So she got her degree in mathematics and works as an engineer.
Cool morning. Drive fast. Wasps very slow. Open door. Spray with agent of choice. Watch as innocent gifts of nature die a horrible death at your hands. Live with regret and guilt …the gift that keeps on giving.
(W)asps! Very dangerous! You go first!
I consider myself a peace-loving soul, but I’ve never had a problem with killing something that had a stinger that it could use repeatedly, and that had intentions of using it on me!
I’d feel a little different about killing honeybees. (unless they were killer bees)
It is oil from Mum’s and that means its natural and not harmful to people or pets.
Not quite. It’s never to be applied directly to the skin. When LLBean began selling mosquito clothes soaked in permethrin about 7 years ago, many children’s and environmental groups were upset because of the harm to little kids and to the environment.
When I went to Africa a few years back, I did lots of reading about permethrin - what I remember is that while it’s extremely effective, it should be respected.
Read the warning label and you’ll see plenty of precautions.
On several occasions, I have sent a nest of wasps to oblivion by putting about 100 grains of Goex FFFg in a muzzle loading shotgun and no shot, a blank load in other words. Point the muzzle at the wasp nest about a foot away and pull the trigger, the wasps and nest are gone without a trace. Dead before the even knew they were going to die.
Do not try this by removing the shot from a commercial 12 gauge shell. It has to be black powder. Nitro or smokeless powder just fizzles if there is no shot charge to provide the back pressure it needs to explode.
Cool Solution: Go To Radio Shack. Buy A Can Of Component Cooler.
Make a 6" x 6" “patch” of masing tape. Quickly slap the patch over the gas door while trapping the end of the Component Coolers straw in the gap around the edge of the door. Now that the little guys are trapped, drive a distance to a friend or neighbor to lose any returning wasps looking for the nest (and to find a volunteer).
Hook up the can of cooler and empty half the contents into the gas cap compartment. The spray will freeze the little guys to as low as -62F and they will become lethargic ! Pull the tape, open the door, and have a friend or neighboor brush the wasps and nest out of there with a towel or hospital gown. Watch from a safe distance. Drive fast back home. Voil? !
CSA
It is oil from Mum’s and that means its natural and not harmful to people or pets.
Completely false logic. Just because something is DERIVED from a relatively benign plant does not mean it is not a poisonous substance. Obviously it is a poison or it would not be used to kill insects. Cyanide is derived from peaches, so that couldn’t hurt you?
If you do use a spray insecticide, be sure to wash it off right away. Just a few days ago I sprayed Ortho brand Hornet and Wasp Killer on a little wasp nest above a sliding glass door on the house. Just as the foamy stuff was dripping down the glass, I got an urgent phone call (see note below). I had to abandon the project for a few hours. When I finally got a chance to try to clean the stuff off, it had left a faint stain (etched???) on the glass that did not come off with ammonia-based glass cleaner.
(Since this is Car Talk, the nature of the urgent phone call is pertinent. Distraught adult daughter says: “I just had an accident!” I own (and insure) the car she drives. Based on the damage I saw to the front of the car, plus the cost of an airbag, I’m expecting to hear soon from the insurer that I get to buy a replacement car. But everybody is OK, physically. And BTW, between the car’s getting hooked to the tow truck and my seeing it in the storage lot a couple of days later, it acquired a deep v-dent in the rear. Already reported to the tow company and the insurer, but I can see a fight coming about that.)
After a little research, here’s the story:
http://www.safe2use.com/poisons-pesticides/pesticides/permethrin/cox-report/cox.htm
It IS a poison, it isn’t “oil from Mum’s”. You are probably thinking of pyrethrin which the OP cited.
Thanks AL5000. I was the one that took meaneyedcatz’s suggestion for “pyrethrin” and mistook it for “permethrin”. My mistake. It looks like pyrethrin is safer than permethrin.
and I am afaid to use any store bought sprays… Considering it’s so close to the gas!!!*
Most (all?) modern gasoline fill systems are fully sealed with unvented caps. Gasoline venting when the gas in the tank expands and contracts is done through a lot of plumbing, a Carbon cannister, and a vent hose in an entirely different part of the car. You don’t need to worry about the spray interacting with gasoline. You do have to worry about getting stung or harming the paint job. Best bet is probably to spray after dark when the wasps are (hopefully) inactive.