Lesson 4- How to go scorpion hunting

As a life long resident of the American southwest, you grow accustomed to sharing your abode with creepy crawlies. However, most of these are not wanted. The past couple of months my husband and I have battling the invasion of our home by scorpions.

We found 2 in our garage within just days of each other. It was at this point we decided to call our exterminator. Most exterminators in the Southwest are equipped to fight the scorpions. However, just hours after having our house sprayed I came across another one in the garage ready to attack me as I got in my car to go to work.

The next evening while at dinner my husband and I were talking about our scorpion problem. I came up with the brilliant idea of going scorpion hunting. At least I'm going to take credit for coming up with the idea--this is my blog after all. After doing a little research on my Blackberry we headed to Wal-mart on our way home. Our shopping list consisted of two things:


A black light (approx. $10) and scorpion tongs ($3)
We also used glue traps given to us by our exterminator.

We returned home to search our entire backyard. No sign of any scorpions. So we searched the front yard and the side of the house. No luck. We were getting a little discouraged. Where were they hiding? At this point we opened the garage door, turned off the lights and turned on our black light again. Score!!!

The first one we saw was hiding under my car (they're out to get me, I tell ya!). I held the black light while my husband coaxed the lil' bugger on to the glue trap. We found another one in between the two cars in the garage. Again my husband was responsible for coaxing it on to the glue trap. Boy, were they angry. Now this may seem inhumane, as the glue traps doesn't kill them instantly, but we're not taking any chances that these things hurt us or our awesome dog, Montana.

Once we were back inside I did some research on scorpions and thanks to Wikipedia found some interesting info. If you are stung, there is no anti-venom used in the US, and unless the victim is a small child, elderly person, or sufferer of asthma or other breathing related ailment, going to the ER is a mute point. The wound should be washed well and have an anti-hestimine applied to it. To read more click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Bark_Scorpion