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Monsters bee gone: Toddler's claim of monster in her wall turns out to be 50,000 bees

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

This next story has been getting a lot of buzz. The internet had strong feelings when Ashley Massis Class, a mom in Charlotte, N.C., posted a TikTok about her daughter insisting that there were monsters in her room beginning eight months ago.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Yeah. Specifically, Class' daughter, Saylor, who is now 3 1/2, said there were monsters living in her wall.

ASHLEY MASSIS CLASS: And would point to where her closet was. She, as a young toddler - we assumed it was a very imaginative story.

KELLY: Saylor, by the way, loves the movie "Monsters Inc."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Take you into the world behind your closet door.

BILLY CRYSTAL: (As Mike Wazowski) Ah.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We've always been afraid monsters were there...

CRYSTAL: (As Mike Wazowski) Scary feet, scary feet, scary feet - oop (ph). The kid's awake.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Waiting to scare us.

MASSIS CLASS: We watch that movie so many times. It's, like, her comfort movie.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: "Monsters Incorporated."

CRYSTAL: (As Mike Wazowski) It's a musical.

MASSIS CLASS: My husband and I would pretend to look for monsters. We would give her monster spray, which was just a bottle of water.

SUMMERS: That's a pretty good parenting hack. But sadly, it did not work.

MASSIS CLASS: Flash-forward to February. I had our third baby, and so she became aggressive with, there are monsters in my room. And I thought it was that there's a new baby and, you know, mom was getting more time split.

KELLY: After Saylor endured months of what obviously were tiny monsters living in her bedroom closet, her mom finally called pest control. A specialist was called in - a beekeeper, or a monster hunter to young Saylor.

MASSIS CLASS: He finally drilled a hole into our attic wall. And so he said, you know what? What's underneath this attic vent? And we said, it's actually her bedroom.

KELLY: So the beekeeper went into the bedroom with a thermal camera.

MASSIS CLASS: And it lit up like Christmas. It was floor to ceiling. And he's like, do you see what I'm seeing?

KELLY: What he was seeing was an enormous, 100-pound honeycomb and about 50,000 bees, which he carried away in bee boxes.

SUMMERS: Saylor was relieved.

MASSIS CLASS: Brought her over to the bee box, and we said, hey. Is this - and I videotaped it, actually. And I said, is this what you've been hearing? She said, yes - monsters.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MASSIS CLASS: Bye, monsters. Get out of here.

SAYLOR CLASS: Hi, little bee.

SUMMERS: Those little bees also caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages.

MASSIS CLASS: It's been a nightmare.

KELLY: I'll say. It was what you might call a monstrosity.

(SOUNDBITE OF NICKI MINAJ SONG, "BEEZ IN THE TRAP") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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