If a 3-year-old child tells their parents, "There's a monster in my room!"
Initially, we might think the child is just having a nightmare. The parents' role would be to comfort the child and encourage them to face their fear of the dark.
However, if the child repeatedly insists and is so scared of this so-called "monster" that they can't sleep peacefully, then the parents must take it seriously. Perhaps, hidden in a dark corner, there really is something that only appears in horror movies.
"Mom, there's a monster in the wall."
A couple from North Carolina, USA, recently experienced a similar situation.
This is a family of five, with three children, the youngest being just a few months old. Saylor is their eldest daughter, only 3 years old.
One day, she suddenly told her mom that she heard a monster in the room. Due to her young age, her expression was not very clear, and Saylor had some difficulty explaining what she meant by "monster."
Her mother, Ashley, thought her daughter was referring to a monster in the closet, as the family had recently watched the movie "Monsters, Inc." at home.
To help their daughter overcome her fears, the couple took turns instilling thoughts in the child, roughly saying, "There is no one in the cupboard, no monsters, so there's no need to be afraid."
They also gave their daughter a "monster spray," filled with water, encouraging her, "If there really are monsters, you must bravely confront them!"
However, the daughter's fear did not dissipate; instead, it grew more severe.
She was frequently startled awake at night and eventually became too scared to be alone.
"She kept saying there were monsters and only wanted to sleep in our room."
Mother Ashley said: By this point, she thought her child was just acting out, especially since they recently had a new baby at home. Selah, the eldest daughter, might be seeking attention from her parents.
Until one day, the couple noticed bees constantly entering the attic. Living in a century-old house, they promptly called a pest control company to inspect the situation.
The staff recommended they contact a beekeeper because these bees were an endangered species and couldn't be exterminated with chemicals. The bees were coming and going frequently, likely searching for a hive, which could very well be inside the house.
Beekeeper: I have never seen such a large beehive before.
So, the couple quickly called in a beekeeper to handle the situation, thinking it would be a straightforward task. However, things turned out to be more complicated than expected.
Several beekeepers came, and each had a different opinion.
The first few beekeepers thought the bees were just hovering outside the house and had not entered it; one beekeeper even drilled a hole in the attic but found nothing suspicious.
It wasn't until one beekeeper brought a thermal imaging camera to inspect that they discovered something inside the wall of their daughter's room. The image is shown below:
Upon seeing the picture, Mother Ashley was taken aback, "Are there bodies inside the wall?"
This statement was immediately refuted by the beekeeper, "It's just a large beehive."
When the beekeeper actually opened the wall, they were also startled by the scene before them:
Like a scene from a horror movie, swarms of bees rushed out of the wall, dark and dense, while honey oozed everywhere inside the wall, sticky and terrifying as it flowed down.
On the first day, the beekeeper removed 20,000 bees, vacuumed three times, and extracted 45 kilograms of honeycomb. He also found the queen bee and moved her along with some bees to a new safe home.
On the second day, the beekeeper returned, removed another 20,000 bees, and sealed the entrance with plastic to block off the wall.
However, the saga wasn't over yet. Even though the honeycomb was relocated, many bees kept coming back.
According to the beekeeper's count, he eliminated around 60,000 bees and 45 kilograms of honeycomb. They had entered the wall through a coin-sized hole in the attic.
This honeycomb took about 8 months for the bees to construct, making it the largest one the beekeeper had encountered in his 40-year career. It filled up an entire large garbage bag, was very heavy, and required three layers of bags for containment.
According to the video released by Ashley, the damage caused by clearing the large beehive in this home amounted to as much as $20,000.
What's even more unfortunate is that this cost is not covered by insurance, with the reason being: it was preventable.
But that's not the most extreme part. Due to the beehive, the house was filled with honey everywhere, making it like a "cookie covered in honey," attracting a large number of insects and ants.
After clearing the beehive, Ashley discovered an ant infestation in the house, with ant queens already settled in the walls. Truly distressing!
This family had to move out again to deal with these pests.
The only silver lining is that the daughter's fear of monsters has been alleviated.
