I WAS rather unfortunate to acquire two wasps' nests over the previous hot spell.

Both were close to the house and one nest was rather nicely placed over my back door and under my daughter's bedroom window, and the other was in the air vent in my daughter's bedroom. I wasn't sure exactly what action to take, so I telephoned the council. I was directed to a very friendly lady who told me that they have a man who disposes of nests for a fee of £35 but it would be a wait of between 5 - 10 days. I explained where the nests were and the lady said she would leave the pest controller a note and he would call between 4 and 5pm that day. She also suggested that I could call a private company if I was desperate.

I stayed in all day with the back windows and back door closed. The temperature rose to 34deg. The pest controller didn't ring and, after a restless night with my daughter in my bed, the following day I decided to call a private company as temperatures were set to rise further. After an initial quote of £40 I was eventually charged a whopping £189! But, as if that wasn't bad enough, I then received a visit on the third day from the council pest controller. I explained the situation to which he requested a £10 call-out fee!

How can the council justify this as they didn't even confirm a date or time and originally quoted a 5-10 day wait? I wasn't even aware he was going to call; I just thought he would ring first! Do they just expect to turn up out of the blue and hope someone will be home?

I am totally disgusted with the council and write to warn others the same could happen to them.

S Attley

Marlbrook

l Bromsgrove District Council's reply is:- 'We would like to say that while we sympathise with S Attley's situation we have been inundated with similar requests during this extremely hot weather and are dealing with them as soon as we possibly can. We inevitably have a waiting list and are doing our best to deal with each request. We are sorry we were unable to contact S Attley sooner than we did but our pest controller officer visited the property on his first opportunity.'