Tips for dealing with scorpions - scorpion in the garden

Notice anything hiding in the picture?

Move in a little closer and you can see the scorpion that came out after I planted

two new Hibiscus plants today and watered the garden very well.

Whenever we see one my husband grabs one of these glue traps and takes off the paper (to make it ready to stick).

Then he gets an old broom handle and some gloves (while I am keeping an eye on the bug).

He folds the open trap around the top of the handle putting the stick through the tab slot. 

Then we add some tape to keep it on there (usually duct tape, today we only had packing tape.)

Then he lines up right in front of the scorpion and gets up the courage to move the trap straight at it with the pole end right where the scorpion is. Once he smashes the trap on the scorpion he uses the broom stick end to make sure it is smashed. These traps are so sticky even lizards get stuck if you are not careful so they really grab the scorpions well. 

You can see the trap stuck to the wall with the smashed scorpion behind it. It wasn't going anywhere so I went and grabbed an old shoe box. 

My husband uses the pole to pull the trap off the wall (or floor) carefully without having to touch it. 

Then he brought it over to the box and it stuck right inside the box. 

Just to make sure we got the scorpion he used the stick to flip over the trap and sure enough he got it. You can see the orange outline right in the middle (on the Letter "P") along with other debris that was along for the ride.

We get a few in our yard and pool every month.

We have two young kids so are always vigilant to make sure the scorpions are on our minds when we are home or outside. 

Some other tips for dealing with scorpions:

1) Get your home sealed professionally by someone with proven success

When we moved in to our Chandler home we hired Seal Out Scorpions to seal our home  and evaluate our yard for risky areas they may hide out. It has been over a year since we had the home sealed and we have only seen the scorpions outside, usually dead or dying. They also sealed a house for us in Mesa and again, we had no scorpions inside and were in the house 2-3 years after the initial sealing and the yearly maintenance.

You can read about their service here: http://sealoutscorpions.com/
They performed scientific research to help develop their procedures after dealing with scorpions in their own home. They know the ways the scorpions get into the home and how to seal up the home safely to keep you safe and at ease.

They have made us feel so safe in our home that we always recommend them to any friends or family or even strangers in Arizona as soon as we hear they are dealing with scorpions.

They also provide some scorpion repellents to spray around your windows and doors and outside on paths for added security from these pests. Did you know cedar oil is a natural scorpion repellent?

2) Have your home's exterior sprayed monthly by a Scorpion Specialist

We use Scorpion Tech to spray our home's exterior and yard monthly. They work with the guidance from Seal Out Scorpions and we have been very satisfied. If we see the scorpions outside they are usually dead or dying and the glue traps for the garage are also helpful to capture any bugs that are wandering around. If you do happen to accidentally catch a lizard just pour olive oil on it and help it gently to get off the trap. It is best to leave them where there are only bugs.

They have fantastic customer service and are very reasonably priced and accept PayPal financing. They always check in to see what kind of activity we are seeing and if there are any areas we want them to spray or to avoid.

They are very careful to keep the yard safe for our kids and our pets as well. It was money well spend for the peace of mind we have walking around barefoot inside and letting our kids play on the ground and sleep on nap mats.

3) Try natural repellents and solutions

 Diatomaceous Earth

You may read about this as an option online. We have tried some and bought FOOD GRADE to make sure it was not harmful to anyone in our family or our pets.

I have read mixed reviews on it and cannot tell for sure whether it made a difference but it made me feel better spreading it all over our yard. We were told that it should be finely spread so the scorpions will walk through it and take it back to their home to nest where it scratches their exterior causing harm and vulnerability to infection.

Cedar Oil and Cedar granules

Much of the research I have been doing online is showing cedar oil is a natural repellent for scorpions. This can be either in straight oil or as granules and other formulations. Our scorpion sealing company has an oil that we are using and we just ordered granules called CedarCide (called Pet Safe) that is a container of red cedar granules you can use in your yard and is safe for pets and children. They are ground up granules of red cedar tree so are all natural and replenishable. I ordered this one tonight because last night we had our first scorpion in our home since we moved in over a year ago and I am pretty freaked out. It was right where the kids had been playing Legos but luckily they were upstairs in bed when we saw it crawling over. I will update this post or add a new post once it arrives and we try this product out. For now we are using a cedar oil spray around the windows and doors and bought some cedar cat litter and sprinkled it all around the house right next to the foundation. I will tell you I didn't get much sleep last night!

4) Black Light Hunts

There are companies that you can hire to search your yard at night using black lights which cause the scorpions to "glow" and be easier to see. There are some companies that perform hunts of the scorpions to find out how many you have, where they are and help get rid of the nests. We haven't tried this yet because we have seen good control with the other things we have tried but someday when we have a little extra money I would like to do this just to feel extra relaxed in our yard.

5) Call Poison Control and 911

If you or someone in your home gets stung you can call poison control 1-800-222-1222 and watch them carefully for symptoms and issues. There are options to treat the venom for people who are more at risk for complications. Watch for anaphylactic reactions and it is always smart to take them to Urgent Care or the ER just to evaluate and help lessen discomfort, especially for babies, kids or the elderly. Paramedics are free just to come see how the victim is doing and monitor them or provide advice on where to take them for care.

More details are here on the FDA website where they state 11,000 people are stung by Scorpions in Arizona alone: 

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm266515.htm

This was not a sponsored post. If you have questions please email us about our experiences (admin@kenwrightonline.com) and I would be glad to share information with you. There was one link to my Amazon Affiliate site but it was noted in the post and we receive commission when people purchase through our link.