Reclaiming the Shelton Ave Kiosk

Shelton Ave kiosk "BEFORE"

You may have noticed a kiosk at Shelton Lakes that became a 2004 time capsule. The one on Shelton Ave under the power lines. Nothing was ever changed under the plexiglass. Here's proof:

"Currently (June 2004)"

There are two reasons for that. First, the kiosk design made it hard to open it up. You needed to dismantle it rather than just open some doors. And when we tried to do that a few times over the past 15 years, we discovered wasps, fled the scene, and moved on to other tasks. In March of 2019, we weren't expecting wasps, but when the kiosk was taken apart to replace the map, there they were, crawling about. It was a bit startling.

It's ALIVE!!!

The back side of the kiosk was packed with years of wasp nesting materials, and many wasps assumed to be dead were actually alive.

Backside nest with crawling wasps

Fortunately, the wasps were just crawling around and too cold to launch an attack. That seemed like the perfect time for an offensive. The wasps and both sides of the kiosk were sprayed with permethrin (normally used to treat clothing for ticks). It worked. Permethrin lasts for about a month, and hopefully would discourage any survivors from coming back to the kiosks.

Common Paper Wasp stunned by Permethrin

These were later identified as common paper wasps, and it looks like the same family may have been living in this kiosk for many years. With the wasps dispatched, the kiosk was cleaned out in preparation for a door redesign. The old paper map that was removed disintegrated into a thousand pieces as soon as it was touched.

Cleaned out and ready for repair

About a week later, Trails Committee member Terry Gallagher set out to convert the kiosk from one that needed to be unbolted to one with doors that can be easily opened. The doors had been made years ago, but had not been installed due to the wasps. Happily, Terry did not encounter any wasps while fixing the kiosk.

Adding kiosk doors

Installing the doors turned out to be more time consuming than expected. The roof braces were in the way. More parts were needed at Home Depot. That sort of thing.

All ready for new materials!

But in the end, it got done and is ready for new informational materials.  The map box was taken home for refurbishing. We have new Shelton Lakes brochures on order that will be going in the map boxes soon.