If You Find A Dryer Sheet In Your Mailbox Don't Worry - It's A Good Thing

Lately there have been a lot of stories about needing to be careful if you find something strange, like "1F" written outside of your home, or a water bottle or melted cheese on your car, but not every odd occurrence means something bad is going to happen. For example, you might find it bizarre and maybe even a little disturbing to discover a dryer sheet in your mailbox, but it turns out that it is not at all a bad omen, in fact, it is actually someone doing you a favor.

Mail carriers tend to keep a supply of dryer sheets on hand because the fabric softening products deter wasps, and it is pretty unpleasant for postal workers to reach into mailboxes and get stung. If they see wasps, yellow jackets or any other kind of stinging insect building a home in the mailbox, they'll throw a dryer sheet in there and hope the bugs find a new place to live.

One postal worker took to Reddit to further explain what is going on. They said last year they were stung ten times on ten separate occasions, but realized the insects hate scented dryer sheets, noting, "If we encounter a box that is a problem for nests, we'll often put one in there and it does the trick." They added, "So please, 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."

So how does it work? Well as the postal worker found out, wasps don't like strong aromas, like the scent that comes off of dryer sheets, and they certainly don't want to live in a place that has a strong odor, so they leave.

If you do find a dryer sheet in your mailbox, be sure to switch it out when you notice the scent is no longer fresh and strong to help keep the stinging bugs away... and keep the postal worker coming.

Photo: Getty Images


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