Gerald Hanks
A swarm of bees turned a flood-damaged Houston home into their own personal hive. The home on Beechnut Street in southwest Houston was undergoing repairs. As contractors ripped out the sodden sheetrock in the home’s bathroom, they found that thousands of bees had built a hive inside the walls.
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The home had sustained extensive damage due to floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey. According to Karen Knight, the home’s owner, the rain poured through the roof and left six inches of water in nearly every room.
Knight inherited the home from her aunt in 2014. Her aunt had told her about the bees living inside the walls, but no one could move the hive without tearing down the walls.
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“The bees are not aggressive,” Knight told a local newspaper Tuesday morning. “We would see the occasional bee in the house.”
Giant beehive found in walls of Houston home https://t.co/EqwXzL5Cwf
— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) November 21, 2017
Knight also told the newspaper that she and her family have been dealing with tremendous financial strain. Prior to the storm, Knight’s daughter was paralyzed in an auto accident. The costs of her care, combined with those of repairing their home, have left the family in dire straits.
A local pest control company offered Knight a steep discount to get rid of the beehive. GOTCHA Pest Control offered to remove the bees for $100, compared to their standard price of $1,200 to $1,500.
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While the company has been busy with removing other types of pests from flood-damaged homes, GOTCHA Operations Manager Kristy Fleener told the newspaper that this is their first case involving bees since the storm.
“Rodents have been a big nuisance since Harvey,” Fleener said. “Large cockroaches are also coming up from the sewers.”
