Wasp Nest Removal Cost Calculator

About $220 for one exposed nest you can reach from the ground, or $265 at the eaves where a ladder is needed. A nest inside a wall, soffit or the ground is $370, because the void has to be dusted and then sealed, and the same job at the eaves on a same-day call is $575. Extra nests on the same visit are only about $35 each, because the suit, ladder and trip happen once. The national average is around $385 with most jobs between $212 and $875.

For one exposed nest you can reach standing on the ground, usually yes. A can of jet aerosol is about $10, you use it after dark when the colony is home and slow, you stand well back and upwind, and you walk away rather than watching. Four situations are worth paying for instead: anyone in the house having a sting allergy, a nest above head height, a nest inside a wall or the ground, and yellowjackets in the ground where children or a dog use the yard. The height one matters most — up a ladder in the dark, the reflex when stung is to let go.

Wasps, hornets and yellowjackets are smooth and shiny with a narrow waist and bright yellow or white markings, and they are the ones around your drink and the trash. Honeybees are fuzzy, golden-brown, about half an inch long and busy around flowers rather than around you. The nests differ too: paper wasps build an open gray umbrella of visible cells, bald-faced hornets the big enclosed gray football, and honeybee comb is flat sheets of white or yellow wax. If they are honeybees, a pest company should not be killing them and a beekeeper will usually take them instead.

Because it is a different treatment and it has a second step. A void nest is treated with insecticide dust blown into the cavity, which the insects walk through and carry into the nest, killing the colony rather than the few guards at the entrance — a liquid sprayed at the hole does the opposite and leaves the colony alive behind a repellent barrier. Then the entry has to be sealed with copper mesh or foam and sealant, which is the step most often skipped and the reason a treated void gets reoccupied the following spring.

Not until the colony is dead, and this is the one genuinely dangerous mistake on this page. Sealed in, they will find another way out, and in a wall cavity the other way out is often the inside of your house — they chew through drywall more readily than people expect. Treat first, wait for traffic at the entrance to stop completely, and seal afterwards. Sealing is still essential eventually, because an empty void that housed a colony carries scent that attracts the next one.

Have them all done on one visit. The protective suit, the ladder and the drive are most of the cost of the first nest, so each additional one is only about $35. Walk the property properly before the appointment: the eaves on all four sides, under the deck, inside the grill cover, the playset, the shed, the mailbox post, and any hole in the ground with insects going in and out. Finding a fourth nest after the technician has left means paying the setup twice.

Early summer is easiest and cheapest in practice, because a nest in June holds a few dozen insects while the same nest in September holds hundreds with a much shorter temper. The other useful fact is that in most of the country paper wasp, hornet and yellowjacket colonies die off completely at the first hard frost and do not reuse the nest — so a high nest discovered in October can usually be left alone and knocked down empty in winter. That is a free outcome, and it is worth knowing before paying for roof access in the cold.

Usually some form of it, and the wording is what matters. Ask specifically whether it covers reoccupation of the same location, because that is the realistic failure — a void that was not sealed gets a new colony next spring, and a guarantee covering only "this nest" does not help. Thirty to ninety days is common on an exposed nest, and on a void treatment the sealing work is the thing to get in writing rather than the guarantee.

This is where paying is clearly right, and the price reflects the access rather than the insects — roof or second-story work is about 45% more here, which covers a harness or a lift and is a legitimate line rather than padding. Before committing, check the calendar: if it is late in the season the colony will be dead within weeks and the nest will not be reused, so the job becomes knocking down an empty nest in winter at no risk. If it is midsummer and the nest is over a door or a walkway, have it done.