Wizzie Brown is a program specialist with the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Office.
What Exactly is a Scorpion?
“A scorpion is a type of an arachnid so they have eight legs, they have a long tail with a stinger at the end. Depending on how you react to the sting, it can either just kind of feel like a bee sting or you can have real funky, weird things go on like throwing up and nausea or having body parts go numb or different things like that.”
How Do They Get Inside Houses?
“Scorpions can climb up walls. They have these little claws on the feet that they can use to kind of grab onto things. A lot of times what happens is if you have trees touching or overhanging your house, they will climb up the tree, use that a bridge to get onto the roof of the house and then they’ll come in through vents in the attic. Once they have access to the attic space, then they can pretty much move around in the wall voids to where ever they want.”
How to Get Rid of Them:
“Definitely trim any trees or shrubs that are touching the house… make sure that you have window screens that are in good repair, that any cracks or crevices are sealed with sealant and that your weatherstripping around doors and windows has a tight seal. You can use pesticidal sprays along the outside of the house – you really don’t need to spray inside for the scorpions because they’re coming in from outside so you want to target your treatment outside – so usually around the foundation and around doors and windows.”
