When my oldest son was three, we lived in central Missouri. He was playing on the front lawn as I watched him from the porch. I saw him poking something on the handlebar of his trike, and asked him what he was doing.
He said, “Mommy, come look at the curly bug!”
His “curly bug” was a Striped Bark Scorpion. Thankfully, I was able to dispatch it to eternity (several times over!) without anyone getting stung.
:eek:
Scorpions are much more common in newly built houses, due to disturbance of their habitat and such. New house = great new place to live.
That said, I live in a fairly old apartment complex (anything not built within the last five years here is fairly old), and in the two years I’ve lived there, I have seen three scorpions. Actually, I guess I’ve seen all three in the past year.
First was small (~1/2 inch body) and in my roommate’s bedroom, next to his bed.
Second was bigger (~1 inch body) and was in our dining room.
Third was even bigger (~1.25 inch body) and was hanging out on the wall in our entry way. Took some nice pictures of that one, but alas! I left them at home today. Maybe I’ll post if the thread’s still active tomorrow.
Scorpions are my least favorite critter. Worse than cockroaches, and even worse than hairy spiders. Therefore, stepping on them is not enough of a punishment for their invasion of my space. If any show up in my domicile, it gets picked up with tongs and placed into an empty alcohol container. Didn’t have one handy for the latest, so it went into an empty gatorade bottle and suffocated to death.
Little bastards.
Saw two or three while I was living in Key West. But I didn’t see them until I had been there for about a year. I went into work and said, “Hey, there was a little baby scorpion on my living room wall today.” Someone on my staff seemed surprised, and I went on to explain that it was the first one I had seen. She said to me, “You don’t shake your shoes out before you put them on?” Apparently, I was the only person on the island who didn’t shake my shoes out to ensure there were no scorpions in them.
Oh, well, I would shake my shoes periodically after that, but never found any in my shoes, just the living room walls.
If I found a scorpion, and it could sing Here I am, rock you like a hurricane in a little tiny voice, I might consider keeping it just for a party trick. Otherwise, I spray them with Windex or something toxic, and hope that their family isn’t nearby.
And yeah, living here in Palm Springs, we shake out shoes out before putting them on.
Tamerlane, you are a true hero of the SDMB.
What? For grossing people out :p?
Hello? Northwest Territories Apartments? I was wondering if you had any two bedroom units…