Merlin Pest Control - Press Coverage

reproduced from The Times September 30th 2000

It has been an extremely good year for wasps - or a bad one, depending on your point of view. Whatever, there is no doubt that it is turning out to be a bumper year for David Le Cluse and Tom Dunne.
Together they are Merlin Pest Control which operates throughout South London. Between them, they reckon they are dealing with more than 20 nests a day. “It’s the best season for the pest control industry in 40 years,” says Le Cluse.
The pair begin work each day around 7am and finish whenever their mobile phone stops ringing in the evening. It is, incidentally, also a good year for the foxes, rodents, birds, bugs and assorted other pests which they have no time to deal with at the moment.
Merlin Pest Control came to my notice when a neighbour reported picking an apparently perfect apple from his tree only to find it hollowed out and alive with wasps. Shortly afterwards the airspace outside my window began to look like Heathrow on a Bank Holiday.
Happily, the pest controllers were already in the area and arrived in a couple of hours. For Ł35 they dealt swiftly with the wasps, which were nesting behind a soffit board beneath guttering. In a matter of minutes insects were tumbling drunkenly outof the sky and soon all aerial activity ceased.
It was a straightforward incident involving no more than 10,000 wasps, including grubs, one of the uniformed men said reassuringly before hurrying off.
Wasp activity peaks in August and September, but this time last year Merlin would have been lucky to receive three calls a day. The experts attribute this year’s wasp bonanza to a particularly mild January, February and March, which saw insects coming out of hibernation prematurely. “Then in April there was a sudden unexpected frost that killed off most of the queens” Le Cluse explains.
He had thought that it would take years for the wasps to recover their numbers gradually. His colleague disagreed and forecast, correctly as it turned out, that the queens which had survived would compensate by producing a glut of wasps this year.
Even though they act as executioners, the pest controllers harbour a certain admiration for these highly social representatives of the Hymenoptera order of insects. For despite their universally bad PR image among humans, wasps are the helicopter gunships of the insect world, says Dunne. “They are armour-plated, have remarkable vision and can take a fly on the wing.”
Nor should their propensity for spoiling picnics by attacking our jam sandwiches make us forget that they too operate as efficient pest controllers of a kind, cutting an environmentally friendly swath through all manner of unwelcome insects in our gardens.
Wasps favour lofts to construct nests These usually hang by a thread from rafters and are constructed of wood taken from fruit trees and transformed with saliva into a delicate kind of paper. The nests can be as big as footballs or even bigger.
“The largest I’ve seen was as big as a dustbin” says Le Cluse.
Some soft-hearted clients ask for the wasps not to be destroyed but merely relocated, but this is not allowed, he explains. A keen gardener told them recently that he had been knowingly harbouring a nest until the wasps had solved his greenfly problem, but was then ready for it to be dealt with.
Extermination which involves pumping insecticide dust under pressure through the nest entrance, can be hazardous for the pest controllers although they wear bee veils and waxed gloves that cover their arms. Guard wasps react to the slightest vibration near a nest and can sometimes gain entry under the bottom of a veil with painful consequences.
For Dunne a sting is more than a passing inconvenience. “I’m allergic to them,” he says, “and you don’t build up immunity to wasp stings.” If stung, his arms swell to twice their normal size and he could end up in hospital.
Recently, the firm was contacted by a Battersea pensioner who had been stung six times by wasps that he thought were nesting in a window frame. It turned out that the insects were flying through the partly open window into his living room and behind him into the armchair on which he sat watching television.
The old man had been relaxing a on a nest of 25,000 wasps that could have killed him.
“It was probably only the fact that he was elderly and sitting quietly that saved him,” says Dunne.
It may be some consolation for householders, unable to obtain the services of pest controllers in the current rush, that wasps will not return next year to the same nest.


	Gunships in the garden reproduced from The Times September 30th 2000 It has been an extremely good year for wasps - or a bad one, depending on your point of view. Whatever, there is no doubt that it is turning out to be a bumper year for David Le Cluse and Tom Dunne. Together they are Merlin Pest Control which operates throughout South London. Between them, they reckon they are dealing with more than 20 nests a day. “It’s the best season for the pest control industry in 40 years,” says Le Cluse. The pair begin work each day around 7am and finish whenever their mobile phone stops ringing in the evening. It is, incidentally, also a good year for the foxes, rodents, birds, bugs and assorted other pests which they have no time to deal with at the moment. Merlin Pest Control came to my notice when a neighbour reported picking an apparently perfect apple from his tree only to find it hollowed out and alive with wasps. Shortly afterwards the airspace outside my window began to look like Heathrow on a Bank Holiday. Happily, the pest controllers were already in the area and arrived in a couple of hours. For Ł35 they dealt swiftly with the wasps, which were nesting behind a soffit board beneath guttering. In a matter of minutes insects were tumbling drunkenly outof the sky and soon all aerial activity ceased. It was a straightforward incident involving no more than 10,000 wasps, including grubs, one of the uniformed men said reassuringly before hurrying off. Wasp activity peaks in August and September, but this time last year Merlin would have been lucky to receive three calls a day. The experts attribute this year’s wasp bonanza to a particularly mild January, February and March, which saw insects coming out of hibernation prematurely. “Then in April there was a sudden unexpected frost that killed off most of the queens” Le Cluse explains. He had thought that it would take years for the wasps to recover their numbers gradually. His colleague disagreed and forecast, correctly as it turned out, that the queens which had survived would compensate by producing a glut of wasps this year. Even though they act as executioners, the pest controllers harbour a certain admiration for these highly social representatives of the Hymenoptera order of insects. For despite their universally bad PR image among humans, wasps are the helicopter gunships of the insect world, says Dunne. “They are armour-plated, have remarkable vision and can take a fly on the wing.” Nor should their propensity for spoiling picnics by attacking our jam sandwiches make us forget that they too operate as efficient pest controllers of a kind, cutting an environmentally friendly swath through all manner of unwelcome insects in our gardens. Wasps favour lofts to construct nests These usually hang by a thread from rafters and are constructed of wood taken from fruit trees and transformed with saliva into a delicate kind of paper. The nests can be as big as footballs or even bigger. “The largest I’ve seen was as big as a dustbin” says Le Cluse. Some soft-hearted clients ask for the wasps not to be destroyed but merely relocated, but this is not allowed, he explains. A keen gardener told them recently that he had been knowingly harbouring a nest until the wasps had solved his greenfly problem, but was then ready for it to be dealt with. Extermination which involves pumping insecticide dust under pressure through the nest entrance, can be hazardous for the pest controllers although they wear bee veils and waxed gloves that cover their arms. Guard wasps react to the slightest vibration near a nest and can sometimes gain entry under the bottom of a veil with painful consequences. For Dunne a sting is more than a passing inconvenience. “I’m allergic to them,” he says, “and you don’t build up immunity to wasp stings.” If stung, his arms swell to twice their normal size and he could end up in hospital. Recently, the firm was contacted by a Battersea pensioner who had been stung six times by wasps that he thought were nesting in a window frame. It turned out that the insects were flying through the partly open window into his living room and behind him into the armchair on which he sat watching television. The old man had been relaxing a on a nest of 25,000 wasps that could have killed him. “It was probably only the fact that he was elderly and sitting quietly that saved him,” says Dunne. It may be some consolation for householders, unable to obtain the services of pest controllers in the current rush, that wasps will not return next year to the same nest.


12th June 2005