172 Scorpions Collected in Gilbert AZ

Hi, my name’s John Davis. I’m Director of Research and Development at Scorpion Sweepers and also one of our specialists.

I’m here today to talk about one of our recent scorpion infestation protocol anecdotes. I was assigned to go and perform an infestation protocol, a sweep, on a new customer’s home. The customer was just about to move into a house that they had recently purchased and wanted to know if they, perhaps, had a scorpion problem since they had been told by the home seller that they had seen a couple of scorpions in the time that they’d lived there.

Upon arrival, I noticed a fairly large property in a really nice neighborhood and thought at first they may have a bit of an issue just due to the sheer size of the property. I went ahead and conducted the sweep with the homeowner by my side so that I could speak with her about what I was seeing, any problem areas that I might notice, and any suggestions that I could provide to prevent a worse problem than I was already observing.

After sweeping the homeowner’s front yard, I had captured 17 scorpions and noticed some areas that may have been a little bit more problematic than others. Seventeen doesn’t seem like a high number, but in our experience we typically find fewer scorpions in the front yard than we find in the backyard. I warned the homeowner that we might have a show for the rest of the evening once we entered her backyard.

Upon entering her backyard, we immediately found ten scorpions within the first 20 or 30 steps. That continued to be the case as I worked over the entire property which, as I mentioned before, was fairly large. It consisted of three separate yards and a large pool area.

In the side yards, I found a reasonable number, ten, maybe 20 total, in the grassy and dirt areas of the yard. In the pool area, I didn’t find any right around the pool or in the pool deck, but she did have a really nice waterfall feature and a slide that was built out of boulders and structure. We typically find scorpions in that area, but again, I only found one on the entire rock slide area. So I was a bit surprised.

I made my way behind that structure, where the pool pumps were. There was also quite a bit of overgrown vegetation. In that area, almost everything seemed to be glowing. I caught approximately 40 or 45 scorpions behind the rock slides and then proceeded around to the final area of the yard, which consisted of a playhouse, a playground setup, a putting green, and a built-
in trampoline. In that area alone, I found nearly 75 or approximately 80 scorpions, including two females that were carrying 20 or 30 babies on their backs.

This was one of the heaviest infestations I’ve seen in my time as a scorpion sweeper. I informed the homeowner that it appeared to be a significant problem. There were some areas that we were having difficulty accessing because of overgrown vegetation. The built-in trampoline prevented access to a few scorpions I could see under that underground.

She informed me that she had been working with a pest control company recently that had been out to spray her property, and they had given her a guarantee that they would come out for free and spray again if she found any other scorpions on the property. By the time I completed her sweep, I had found 172 scorpions, which is one of the highest totals we’ve seen so far. Although I did find about 15 dead scorpions around her patio, which may have been due to some of the pest control treatment, clearly it didn’t have an effect on the overall problem on her property.

I recommended that we come back out. She mentioned that she was going to use our summary of the sweep and the information and recommendations I provided her on how she could treat the problem without pesticides. She was going to provide that to the pest control company that was due to come out the next day and ask them to target those areas.

We intend to go back and sweep her property again after they’ve come through and determine whether that treatment’s been effective, or perhaps whether she needs to go ahead and continue to use our service to reduce her population and minimize the overall impact that the population of scorpions has on her property.

A new homeowner in Gilbert, Arizona called Scorpion Sweepers to conduct a Scorpion Audit before she moved in. She was concerned because the previous owner had stated that they had seen a few scorpions here or there in the past year. Even though she was using a company that guaranteed scorpions elimination she decided to bring in the experts at Scorpion Sweepers to see what we could find. After the audit 172, Arizona Bark Scorpions were found including three mothers with 20-30 babies on their back.

This is one of our older reports, find our current report sample here.

Sweep Results and Scorpion Locations

Wednesday was the initial sweep of your property. We observed a significant infestation of your property resulting in a collection of 37 Arizona bark scorpions from the front yard (including a female carrying 20 young) and approximately 135 in the back of your property (including 2 females carrying approximately 20 young each). Scorpions were found nearly everywhere EXCEPT in any trees, on the structure of the house, and on your driveways. There were several areas that appeared to have the highest densities and produced about 75% of the 135 collected from the backyard: (1) 40 (including 2 females carrying young) were found in the area that contains the playhouse, trampoline, putting green, playground set, and outdoor shower / restroom – 10 additional scorpions were seen under the built in trampoline and could not be accessed, (2) 35 were collected from the area behind your pool slide / waterfalls and this area had dense vegetation and leaf litter that provided a lot of cover for the scorpions, (3) 10 were found along the right side wall of the backyard immediately after entering the back gate, (4) approximately 20 were found in the crevices along the edges of the hardscape walkways and the grass or dirt, and (5) 5 were found in the roof tiles at the back of your yard adjacent to the pool filter / pumps at the back of the property. We also collected a significant number of recently killed scorpions (15-20 total), mostly from your back patio, which suggests that the pesticide being applied may be working on a few of the scorpions.

Notes and Recommendations

We would recommend trimming vegetation and grass to remove the additional refuges scorpions may use, continue pest control treatments to eliminate insects and other prey species scorpions eat and ask your pesticide applicators to focus on the areas we identified above. Insects were uncommon, except behind the pool slides / waterfalls and in the yard between the playground and outdoor shower / restroom. There were many spider webs, including 1 that contained a scorpion. Unless the spiders are identified as black widows or brown recluse, we recommend leaving them as natural predators for the scorpions.

With this many scorpions outside your home, there may be an issue inside. We recommend sealing your home and property walls.

Next Sweep

This is a huge problem, by far the most scorpions we have seen at a home. I highly recommend we come out every week until the number is in the teens or lower.