A PEST control officer found the shoe was on the other foot when a swarm of wasps caught him by surprise - lurking inside a pensioner's slipper under her bed.

Pat Dodd made the discovery when he was called out to deal with a few troublesome wasps in the Consett area of County Durham.

Noticing a steady procession of wasps entering the unnamed pensioner's bedroom, he found a nest of up to 60 of the potentially fearsome creatures.

Mr Dodd, who works for Derwentside District Council, said: "I have never seen anything quite like it before. She was lucky she never disturbed them or she could have been very badly stung."

Mr Dodd said that he was alerted after the woman noticed a few wasps in her bedroom.

He said: "When I got there I saw the top of her sash was open and about five wasps flying into the bedroom.

"When I looked further I noticed another ten hanging around the curtain net.

"I started looking around and saw them disappearing down the side of the bed. When I lifted the covers there they were in a slipper, which was covered with what appeared to be a pie crust.

"In my ten years in the business it is only the second time I have found them inside a house.

"They normally nest in sheds, airbricks, drain pipes or in attic spaces."

Mr Dodd said the queen wasp would have come out of hibernation around Easter to look for a place to lay eggs.

The nest he found was probably eight weeks old and would have kept on growing as more grubs hatched.

Mr Dodd said: "The woman probably saw wasps before, but did not make any connection.

"But they started growing until it got to the stage where they were flying to and fro.

"If she had disturbed them they would have attacked her, defending their young.

"She could have got stung pretty bad. And some people do get a bad reaction."

Mr Dodd was not on the back foot for long - within seconds he had dispatched them with a wasp nest destroyer.