In the Netherlands, a 69-year-old woman waged her own personal war on the caterpillars with a heat gun. In a now-viral video, she first flips off the insects and then burns them with the gun at close range, vowing: “I’ll tackle them, those bastards.” The caterpillars are forced out of their nests by the heat, first writhing like grubs and then falling to the ground.

But her plan of attack runs contrary to official advice. A local authority on the caterpillars advised the NL Times against taking matters into one’s own hands, especially if those hands also hold a heat gun. “If such a nest is attacked by a heat gun, there will be an explosion of hair and you can increase the problem.”

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