First of all, the common paper wasp that builds the open nest that looks like an upside down hole filled gray mushroom is not terribly aggressive. These guys eat a lot of mosquitoes and other pesty critters, so if they aren't somewhere that you will be getting too close to very often, you might want to leave them be.
If, on the other hand, you're dealing with the critters that build the big gray basketball nests, those are white faced hornets, and are somewhat more aggressive tenants than the "polistes" wasps. Still, they do eat a lot of pesty small insects, and if you can tolerate them being possessive of the area around their nest, you're ahead of the game to leave them alone.
If the critters show up inside, you need to seal cracks all around the house. You're probably spending more each year on lost heat or A/C than the caulking will cost to seal the house up.
I live in a log home. When we moved in, carpenter bees were a big problem. These guys eat a nice round 1/2" diameter hole into your house, especially pine, spruce, and fir wood species. Left alone they can eventually leave a twisting tunnel about 2 feet long inside a 2 x 6, which of course does no good for the structural integrity of the house.
When we had the place stained, the painter used Sherwin Williams stain and put a S.W. product in the stain to keep them away. The stuff is called "bug juice" and works very well. We have had no carpenter bees for two years now. We get no nests from their relatives, either. It isn't cheap, but you need very little of it -- something like 1/4 ounce per gallon of paint if I remember rightly. I don't know if you want to paint your eaves, but contact your S.W. dealer about the product. It might even be legal in New York!
