If you happen to find a dryer sheet in your mailbox one day this Spring don't be (too) alarmed!

With spring here and temps warming up, you may find a dryer sheet in your mailbox one day. Don't be alarmed! According to a post on the online forum Reddit, it was put there by the mail carrier and actually serves a purpose:

"...this time of the year wasps and Yellowjackets (especially Yellowjackets) like to make nests inside of mailboxes," explains Reddit user u/istrx13 who identifies himself as a letter carrier. "In a lot of places this time of the year, it’s just beginning to warm up outside, but it’s still fairly cold at night. So mailboxes provide nice, easy shelter for them."

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As you can imagine, getting stung while putting your unsuspecting hand inside a mailbox would be quite a nasty surprise. Last summer alone, the author of the Reddit post claims he was stung 10 times on 10 separate occasions. He goes on to explain that one thing mailmen and women have found that discourages wasps and yellowjackets from settling inside mailboxes is dryer sheets -- the scent of dryer sheets, specifically. "We’ve found that they hate scented dryer sheets. If we encounter a box that is a problem for nests, we’ll often put one in there, and it does the trick."

He concludes with a reassuring word, "if you one day randomly see a dryer sheet at the back of your mailbox, just know that your carrier more than likely put it there to deter these Satanic creatures from building their home in it."