An Arizona scorpion hunter explains how to rid your home of these pests

By Steve Goldstein
Published: Friday, May 22, 2015 - 4:12pm
Updated: Friday, June 16, 2023 - 4:34pm

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scorpion
Steve Goldstein/KJZZ
A scorpion spotted during a hunt in Phoenix.

If you happen to get up in the middle of the night, make sure you're wearing shoes and have a flashlight handy, because spring and summer are scorpion seasons in Arizona.

Scorpions can be deadly to young and old, and for those of us in the middle, a scorpion sting hits sharply and then lingers as your hand or arm or foot whatever was stung goes numb.

If you find some of these desert critters in your home — or are worried you might — here are some tips for keeping them at bay.

Fill the cracks

Dawn Gouge works on urban entomology for the University of Arizona. She says rather than spraying poison around your house, you may want to fill in some cracks to keep the scorpions out. 

“Overnight, they will wander around, they're looking for food themselves, they're looking for each other. And that is when they're more inclined to move into a structure. And generally they get inside your home the same way you and I do: right through the front door. It's not always because those doors are propped open but those external doorways quite often, the weather stripping or the door sweeps at the bottom of the door, are not a tight fit. And if you can shove a penny or a quarter underneath your door, that means scorpions can scoot under there and squeeze through.”

Tools for scorpion hunting

Kelly Walterscheid in Mesa is the man behind Scorpion Hunter, a website that offers tips, tricks and tools for natural scorpion eradication.

But that part of the business started by accident. He works with LEDs, which he discovered can help spot scorpions in the dark from many feet away.

“Being that my business is next door to a public facility that hosts weddings and has lots of food, lots of crickets that show up, we had some experimentation time. So, we took tweezers and learned that that could  grasp this little critter. But what do you do with this thing? Well, we could kill it. We could put it in poison. We could heat it up with a torch, like guys like to do, or we could just stomp on it. That wasn't solving the problem. We noticed that the scorpions or the baby scorpions, first of all, don't glow, and they are on mom's back. So, you may feel good that a poisoned trail was laid down by your pest control guy. And the scorpion may happen upon that trail and kill itself. But guess what? The little scorpions that are on ... mama's back are just going to crawl away and be happy to start a whole new family.”

But Walterscheid sees himself as a hunter-gatherer rather than a hunter-killer. He has a kit that includes an 8-inch-long tweezer, a special frequency black light and goggles. 

Scorpions glow under a black light
U.S. Fish and
Scorpions glow when exposed to a black light.

How to get rid of scorpions on your property

Walterscheid says homeowners can rid their own properties of scorpions with pesticides and some diligence. He said the process can take a few days.

“The process is simple. You collect your scorpions, probably three times in a row in the middle of the night when temperatures are above 60 for the lows, so when the monsoon starts hitting and the food starts increasing as far as crickets and all that good stuff. You're going to see the maximum scorpion ... habitats happening. And so, three nights in a row, probably 2 a.m. in the morning, when you're in your deepest night of sleep, the scorpions are most active. So, sorry, but you're gonna have to get up three nights in a row," Walterscheid said.

The trick, he says, is to get entire colonies cleared out over the course of a few nights.

"And they don't all feed every night. So that's the idea. So in three nights in a row, you're gonna get 90% of your population. And once you've cleared your property, you're good to go," Walterscheid said. "Now, you could have a neighbor full of scorpions. You're gonna have to work that out, but they're not going to be like a swarming-bee worry. Once you remove one set of scorpions or maybe dozens on your property, you're not going to have a whole new set come in the next day. They move very slow.”

How to dispose of the scorpions

Walterscheid places a container with the scorpions in bright sunlight for about 10 minutes, which kills them.

If you're feeling especially humane, he says you can take the container, unseal it and release the scorpions into the desert, preferably far away from your own neighborhood.

Of course, then you'll have to find some other way to entertain yourself at night.

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