Sometimes you set out to learn things. Other times, you acquire knowledge against your will and expectations. Ina Lunney can tell you all about that second kind of learning.

Lunney is a single mother, so she knows the ins and outs of child rearing. She's also a secretary in the physics department at N.C. State University, so she knows about running an office, as well as something about physics -- just from paying attention to the Einsteins she works for. She grew up in lower Louisiana, which means she knows about most things Cajun.

She also now knows about being the "problem neighbor" in her subdivision. And she knows more, waaay more, than she ever expected to learn about European hornets.

As you might suspect, those two things -- the hornets and the bad-neighbor reputation -- are related.

Lunney moved from her Raleigh townhouse to a home in unincorporated Wake County in July 2005. She wanted a taste of country life, and she got it. Her yard backs up to a natural area, and her evenings are as quiet as the library at a school for the deaf. But country life also comes with critters. In Lunney's case, they were the hornets that set up housekeeping in her kitchen wall.

About six weeks ago, Lunney noticed a small stain in the kitchen ceiling near a bay window. Suspecting a leak, she went outside to check the shingles and instead noticed hornets flying into and out of a small opening. Lunney hit the opening with insect spray. Lots of the hornets fell dead to the ground, but the primary effect was to make them her mortal enemy. This was war.

Problem was, Lunney may have superior technology and tactics, but the hornets have sheer numbers on their side. They just kept coming.

The stain got bigger, and black goo began to ooze out of the ceiling. At one point, she took one of the deceased creatures to an NCSU entomologist, who identified it as a European hornet. If you imagine a yellow jacket beefed up on steroids, you've pretty much got a European hornet. Lunney began studying the enemy. She learned that they swarm at night, and that they're attracted to light.

That explained the hornets' near-suicidal assaults on her kitchen window after dark. "You should be in here at night and hear them crashing against the window," she says.

That also explained the frostiness of some neighbors, who are in the habit of turning on the porch light and stepping outside for an evening smoke. Apparently, the hornets are vigorous anti-tobacco activists, judging by the way they harass those people. Lunney says she has been made to feel like the irresponsible dog owner who lets her hound run loose, soiling other people's yards. One neighbor referred to the insects as "your hornets."

By this past weekend, and after a half-dozen cans of spray had been emptied, Lunney seemed to have the hornets licked. She'll still have to dig the empty nest out of the wall, but the worst is over. Perspective has settled in: At least she's never had snakes in the yard, Lunney says.

Pause.

"You just haven't seen them," her friend Miriam says.

Something tells me herpetology may be Lunney's next field of unwanted expertise.

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