Arizona: Home is where the heat is.

[Merusk]

For how many square feet of living space, and how many people using the shower?  Because I find it amazing that your water/ trash is less than just my water/ sewer in the middle of the midwest. (Without watering the lawn I add, as I sadly look at the brown mess it's becoming.)

1,595 of living space.  It's my house and my brother lives with me, just the two of us.  But then, he doesn't shower as much as a normal person...  So probably together, we count as 1.5 people in terms of shower use.

That's the difference then.  Not only are we a family of 4 --which with kids means a lot more laundry than adults-- but our house is 2,200sf.  Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.

[Ezdaar]

So for those of you that live(d) in Arizona, just how many scorpions do you see regularly? Do they get in to the house a lot, and if so where do they tend to congregate? Does having a second floor dwelling help at all?

Snakes I don't mind, scorpions creep me out.

[Yegolev]

I saw a show on TV where they froze a scorpion in a block of ice for a few days, thawed it out with a propane torch, and the fucker was just fine.  If cockroaches want to inherit the world after a big nuke, they will need to do something about scorpions first.

Fallout rocked.

[Llava]

Whether or not you'll get scorpions depends entirely on where your house is built.

My current house, for example, I haven't seen a single scorpion for the year I've lived here.  I'm in a pretty flat area with a small ditch behind me.

Before that I was living at my parents' house which had a mountain to its back.  Scorpions were at least a monthly occurance.  More than once I'd be catassing away at my computer at 2am, wearing socks, and I'd look down and see a scorpion on the floor.  You just get used to it.  And as for being on the second floor, they could get up there no problem.  Hell, they climb walls.

[Daeven]

So for those of you that live(d) in Arizona, just how many scorpions do you see regularly? Do they get in to the house a lot, and if so where do they tend to congregate? Does having a second floor dwelling help at all?

Snakes I don't mind, scorpions creep me out.

None actually. It was the roving packs of Coyotes gave me pause...

[Ezdaar]

So for those of you that live(d) in Arizona, just how many scorpions do you see regularly? Do they get in to the house a lot, and if so where do they tend to congregate? Does having a second floor dwelling help at all?

Snakes I don't mind, scorpions creep me out.

None actually. It was the roving packs of Coyotes gave me pause...

I actually used to see coyotes a lot in San Diego, not so much now however. Cute little things, especially when they walk out on the runway and you're sitting in a plane ready to take off.

[Llava]

Oh yes, that's another thing to mention.

If you have small animals, watch them.  There's plenty of wildlife around here that'll come right to your front lawn for a snack if it's out there waiting to be snatched up.  Had a friend who lost one of his cats to some coyotes.  Wasn't pretty.

[Shockeye]

So for those of you that live(d) in Arizona, just how many scorpions do you see regularly? Do they get in to the house a lot, and if so where do they tend to congregate? Does having a second floor dwelling help at all?

Snakes I don't mind, scorpions creep me out.

I have yet to see a scorpion in Phoenix.

But then, I don't make a habit of looking for them.

[Yegolev]

I think if Llava and I alternate posts, it will look like Jack Sparrow and Al Leong are engaged in an intense debate.

I have coyotes, and I live in Georgia.  Helps keep my wife from becoming a cat lady.  We are down to one cat and one dog.  If I see a scorpion, though... time to get some illegal insecticides.

[Furiously]

Have black widows in Az too right? And dust storms? And car handles you cannot touch?

[Llava]

Black widows:

We have them, but I have seen so few since I've lived here that it's not a big deal for me.  As I understand it, they like to hang out in damp areas, so just avoid areas likely to be damp and you avoid the widows.

Dust storms:

Oh yeah.  Not "The Mummy" dust storms, but we have them.  Basically it just makes your car dirty.  Sometimes, very very rarely, it's thick enough that driving is slightly riskier.

Car door handles you cannot touch:

Nope, always able to open my car door.  The seatbelt on the other hand.... oh, and leather interiors are for suckers here.

[voodoolily]

We have coyotes out here too, just on the outskirts of town. Had a friend with a big-balled orange Tom that actually survived a tussle with a coyote. Dang but that was one tough little fucker. Out here it's the brown recluses and hobo spiders that you have to watch out for. Our deadliest critter is the rough-skinned newt, and they're so damn docile that you pretty much hafta bite into one of 'em to get them to release their poison.



They pretty much always look like they've just had a wake 'n bake. So cute!

[Rasix]

Have black widows in Az too right? And dust storms? And car handles you cannot touch?

Black widows give me the heebie jeebies.  Yah, we get those.  Had a huge one near a hose outside a month or two ago.  They're generally pretty reclusive, but you've just got to be careful around moist areas and when you clean your garage. 

Dust storms: check. Nothing bad or life threatening.  Hot hot cars: check.  Black isn't a big color here for vehicles.  Although really, any color car is going to hit max internal temperature if you leave it outside for half an hour.

I've had one scorpion at my house and that's it. I'm in an area that has a lot of desert but most of the major construction here ended around 5-8 years ago.  In areas with more recent construction you'll get more scorps.  Anyhow, I could be getting more, but my cats are pretty efficient killers.

We have a pack or two of coyotes living in my neighborhood.  You can hear them howl and night and burst into fits of yelp-laughs when they kill something.  I've only seen one and it was just jogging by the side of the road across the street.   They've never gotten my cats because my cats aren't outdoors without my supervision.  Through my yelling and scolding, they've gotten to know where they're allowed and not allowed to go.

When we got a new kitten, it was outside playing in the grass and a small hawk made a test swoop to see if it could grab him.  Kitten was fat enough and they hawk was small enough that it thought better of actually trying to make the grab. Scary though.

[Signe]

When I was small we had a boxer who used to faint at the sight of raccoons.  It's true.  The first time he did it, we thought the raccoon killed him.  My grandfather was going to shoot the raccoon out of the tree but decided not to when the police showed up... a neighbour called them for some strange reason. 

[OcellotJenkins]

If you live within this zone:



Odds are you have multiple brown recluse spiders living in your box springs matress.  They are more widespread than that map, but the red zone is pretty much a guarantee that you have them in your home.  Creepy little bastards rarely bite people but when they do it's nasty.



Fascinating creatures though.

[schild]

I got bit by one at camp one year when I was about 13. Talk about leaving yourself incapacitated. The bite was on the top of my foot. Needless to say:

It fucked shit up.

[OcellotJenkins]

I got bit by one at camp one year when I was about 13. Talk about leaving yourself incapacitated. The bite was on the top of my foot. Needless to say:

It fucked shit up.

I'm curious, did you feel it and/or see it when it bit you?  I've heard the pain usually doesn't kick in until the poisonous rot sets in.

[schild]

Didn't see or feel it. Woke up with a tiny red mark. That stung like a motherfucker.

Itched and itched and itched.

Then things got twilight zoney. Apparently I have an incredible immune system, and whatever bullshit paste the hippie doctor on camp put on it seemed to work. I had one bad motherfucking welt for about a week. An open wound for only a day or so. And some of the worst pain money CAN'T buy.

My only advice, don't get bit by one. There are kids who have gotten bit and it's been much worse. I was damned lucky.

[Pococurante]

I'm curious, did you feel it and/or see it when it bit you?  I've heard the pain usually doesn't kick in until the poisonous rot sets in.

I never felt any pain on mine.  I was bit between the joints of my left hand's middle finger.  Skin died roughly in the shape of an oblong dime and stayed this rockhard slab for almost two months, then fell out and left nice shiny skin so thin you could make out the bone texture.  When I got back to the States my doctor said it was the first time he'd seen a recluse finger bite that didn't result in amputation.

Few people can rival me for spider stories - I seem to attract them.

[schild]

Few people can rival me for spider stories - I seem to attract them.

As do I, I should note, that when I mean open welt, for one day, it was much like Poco's, only you couldn't see the bone. There's no doubt that the cream the camp doctor put on my foot kept the skin moist so it never turned into a rock hard slap. Had the bite been on my hand, it would have no doubt been moist. Interestingly though, my foot swelled up in the area so much, I could barely get into flipflops.

I'm scared to death of spiders. Despite being bit by one of the worst. Ever.

[Fargull]

Pretty sure I had a recluse visit in early college.  Got a bite on my hip that turned into open wound about the size of my thumb and bled for about a week.  Like a crazy idiot, on the second day I soaked it in peroxide, which by the way was painful as fuck.  Had no clue about the recluse at that time and never went to the Doc, have a little scar there now.

[OcellotJenkins]

Holy hell that sounds awful.

I've been using this shit in and around my house for the past four years and I've not seen a live spider...plenty of dead ones though.

[Pococurante]

Spiders I can live with.  Chiggers on the other hand...

/scritch-scritch

[voodoolily]

When I was a kid I stepped on a yellow jacket's nest and was stung all over my face and body, including my eyelids! I swelled up all over, and had to sit in a bath of cold water with meat tenderizer and baking soda to get the swelling down. But ever since then I have pretty much no reaction to bee stings, instead of going into anaphylaxis like most survivors of multiple stings would. Naw, it's mosquitos that really fuck me up. I get huge welts that feel hot to the touch whenever I get bit. And they usually go for the face. 

[Pococurante]

GO FOR THE EYES, BOO, THE EYES!

Actually skeeters go for the sound mammalian ears give off too.  And women have noisier ears then men.

[Ookii]

Odds are you have multiple brown recluse spiders living in your box springs matress.

Dude I fucking hate spiders more than anything else in this world, what is the backup for such a terrifying statement?

Don't make me buy one of those Swedish memory foam NASA approved mattresses.

[CmdrSlack]

Odds are you have multiple brown recluse spiders living in your box springs matress.

Dude I fucking hate spiders more than anything else in this world, what is the backup for such a terrifying statement?

Don't make me buy one of those Swedish memory foam NASA approved mattresses.

My fear of spiders is why I've never seen any of the spider-based horror films.  I give not a shit if killing them is bad luck...that's why I kill one, then throw salt over my shoulder.

EDIT -- I bet those mattresses just provide a nice, ergonomic place for the little fuckers to hide, Ookii.

[OcellotJenkins]

Odds are you have multiple brown recluse spiders living in your box springs matress.

Dude I fucking hate spiders more than anything else in this world, what is the backup for such a terrifying statement?

Don't make me buy one of those Swedish memory foam NASA approved mattresses.

I've read about the box springs thing in several state extension documents but unfortunately I was unable to find it after a quick google search.  I'll look again when I have more time.

Chiggers my God, I forgot about chiggers.  The last time I got a bad case of chiggers was outside of Houston TX on a work related trip.  I was more concerned with dodging fire ant hills but by the end of the day I had chiggers from my ankels up to just below my balls.  Sheer hell for 3 weeks.  I'll never live in TX for a variety of reasons but chiggers are pretty high on the list.

As far as stings go, the worst for me was something in the waters off the panhandle of florida when I was about 13 years old.  I swam out to a small sand bar to join some people thowing frisbee.  When my foot touched the bottom, something shot up my leg and execruiating pain set in.  It was all I could do to swim back to shore.  A life guard said it was either a jelly fish or a man-o-war and told me to put meat tenderizer on it.  You could see strings of stings reaching from my feet to my waste.  That was the most terrible pain I've ever experienced from a creature.  The meat tenderizer helped immensely though and the pain was under control in under an hour.

Concerning these scorpions in AZ, how big are the fuckers?  I'm envisioning them being at least 2 to 3 inches long, how the hell do they get in the house?  A friend of mine's mother got stung by one that had crawled into her shoes on the porch.  They barely got her to the emergency room in time.  She went into some sort of shock.  Luckily east TN is scorpion free...I think.

Critter stories are fun, eh!?

[Merusk]

Concerning these scorpions in AZ, how big are the fuckers?  I'm envisioning them being at least 2 to 3 inches long, how the hell do they get in the house?

The short version is, your house isn't nearly as 'sealed against the environment' as the average homeowner thinks and bugs can squeeze into some tiny ass spots.

The long version takes illustrations and makes the whole 'buy plastic and duct tape' thing that Homeland security said even more ludicrous.

[schild]

This thread makes my skin crawl.

[voodoolily]

In some places people just release geckos (or other lizards) in their house to deal with crawlies. I think it would be so fun to have cute lil' lizards running all over my house and in my houseplants! Until I found their mutilated corpses and 4 cats with bloodied muzzles. 

[TheWalrus]

Lets open it up to countries!

 In spain they have something called a mole bug/ mole cricket. Hes a big fella bout the size of a mouse. Has what looks like miniature hairbrushes on his front feet. (harmless to people, sorry.) Anyhoo, I was on post middle of the night, and since nothing happens there, we used to feed things to the ants out back to entertain ourselves. And keep them from eating us. One of these guys stopped by the guard shack, and we had a new toy. We stepped on him, not to squish but just to hold him in place, and THE FUCKER PUSHED BACK.

 It was then that Insect Survivor was born. We chucked him in the middle of the ant colony and they swarmed him, but he used those little brushes to scoop the ants into his mouth. Eventually, they got him of course. Took em 5 hours to finally get his body torn apart and another half hour for the head to stop moving. Damn creepy. But fun!

[Llava]

If I recall correctly, and you will probably want to double check this, cats can take care of scorpions pretty well and have no problems with the venom.

[Alkiera]

Walrus, apparently Molecrickets are common around the Gulf of Mexico, here in the US, as well.  Picture provided by the Univ. of Florida...

Are these similar to what you had?

[TheWalrus]

Thems the babys! Weird damn animals. I call them animals because they're huge. Huge like giant rhinocerous beetle huge.