Are wasps finicky about moving into abandoned wasp quarters?

Factual Questions
1

There are several nice sized mud tubes under the eave of my home, far out of reach on the second floor. The residents left for the winter four years ago and I thought “January is a fine time to fetch the ladder and get rid of their home for good!”

Being the procrastinator that I am, I haven’t quite decided which January I will do this. In the meantime, I have noticed that no wasps came back. I figured that such a nice pre-made dwelling would simply grow year after year, but none have returned.

Do all wasps prefer to make fresh nests, or do they ever move into an existing one from the prior year?

2

I have not recently looked this up to confirm if my understanding is correct, but it is indeed my understanding that wasps make fresh nests every year. Keep in mind, those aren’t the same wasps: theif lifecycle, in most cases, is little more than a year: they hatch, build a nest, lay eggs, and die in the winter cold. The following spring, the cycle starts again.

This is a pretty common timeframe in the animal kingdom, especially among arthropods.

Most orb-weaving spiders (e.g., garden spiders; the kind that make the “traditional” round spiderweb) create an entirely new web every morning , btw.