People keep finding dryer sheets in their mailboxes here is why you shouldnt touch it
A dryer sheet tucked between the bills and the junk mail sounds like a prank.It isn’t, and tossing it in the trash could be a mistake.Across the country, homeowners are opening their mailboxes to find a Bounce or Snuggle sheet sitting inside, left there deliberately by their letter carrier. The practice has quietly persisted for years, and it comes down to one thing, keeping wasps out.Mailboxes make ideal real estate for stinging insects.
They’re dark, sheltered from weather, and often go untouched for hours at a stretch, which is exactly what a paper wasp looks for when scouting a nesting spot.“Insects are always going to be looking for food, water, and harborage,” Brandon Runyon, an entomologist with Swat Pest Management told Realtor.com. He added that pests gravitate toward wherever those conditions exist, and mailboxes check every box.Runyon said he has personally discovered paper wasp nests inside his own mailbox.The dryer sheet trick traces back to a 2010 study that tested Bounce’s “Outdoor Fresh Scent” sheets on fungus gnats, an experiment inspired by gardeners who claimed tucking a sheet in their pocket kept bugs away.
Researchers found the sheets held up as a repellent, at least against gnats.Runyon said the science lines up with what’s inside the sheets.Dryer sheets are loaded with linalool and beta citronella, compounds that occur naturally in lavender, mint, and rose geranium, plants long known to keep insects at bay. Manufacturers use those same compounds to give laundry products, lotions, and candles their floral scent, pleasant to people, repellent to bugs.Runyon was careful to note the fungus gnat study doesn’t prove sheets work on wasps specifically, since little formal research exists on that front.
Still, postal workers keep swapping the tip on social media, and local news segments keep running it every summer.Scent may matter more than the sheet itself.A 2015 study found that Victoria’s Secret Bombshell perfume fended o...