Man left scratching his head over gross find in mother’s shed

An ACT man has been left scratching his head after he found a huge mass the size of a basketball in his mother’s shed.

Man finds huge grey mass in his mother's shed. Picture: Facebook

A man’s gross find in his mother’s shed has left him scratching his head as to what it could be.

The man took to an ACT community Facebook page to share images of the huge grey mass, roughly the size of a basketball, stuck to the end of a broomstick.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before and it’s kind of creeping me out a bit! It’s about the size of a basket ball and something has put a lot of effort into it and they seemed to access it along that broom stick,” the man wrote.

“I haven’t been close enough to see if there’s anything in it and I hoping something moved on. It’s made out of some grey organic material like something regurgitated.

“I’m assuming it’s some kind of mammal and I don’t think it’s any kind of insect like wasp or anything like that. Possums have been in there before bit I don’t think they do anything like this do they?”

The man found the mysterious grey mass in his mother's shed. Picture: Facebook

Hundreds of people jumped on the post to guess what it might be. One said it was “aliens”, another said it looked like a paper mache project, while a particularly repulsed commentator said it was “nope on a stick”.

But Julian Bracewell from Pest2Kill, a Sydney based pest control company, said based on the images, it was a European wasp nest.

He said the one depicted was huge, with the largest he’d ever seen to be the size of a football.

“They basically are quite resourceful. They use their saliva mix between whatever material they can get to such as wood, and it’s often mixed with sand and soil which gives it that cement look,” Julian told news.com.au.

He said the wasps weren’t native to Australia but they’d been around long enough to be seen in cooler climates, but also as far north as Queensland.

An expert told news.com.au it was a European wasps nest. Picture: Facebook

Julian said it when the team removed a nest like that it was better to do it in the early morning or in the evening, when they would be more active in the nest.

He said it was important to wear protective gear, and close all the windows and doors, as this form of wasp could be quite aggressive.

Julian added his team used a substance that knocks out the wasps and, after 10 to 15 minutes, the nest was removed.

He added depending on what time of day the nest was removed, it may need a second visit.