The “novella” edits are done and have been sent to the editor. After which I decided to take a wee nap on the couch because I felt a bit tired.
I slept for four hours. And Then I went to bed at a normal time and slept some more. The edit took a lot of braining. OMG, we worked so hard on that thing. This is what happens when you stuff a novel sized idea into half the word count. Argh.
Also, the night before that, as I was about to drift off, Gordon came into the bedroom and said he needed me for firepower and moral support. We have French doors in the living room and those doors are the main exit/entrance for the dogs and cats. We have a couple of senior dogs and in the morning and evenings, the door stays pretty much open. Pets go out and bugs come in.
As a proper Southern woman, I wanted a screen door. Well, apparently, the French doors are installed in such a way that a screen door won’t work. They open to the outside, etc. So a few weeks ago I broke down and bought a magnetic door screen. Here I will link it for you, because you will ask in the comments. As always, it’s not an affiliate link. I was hesitant about the purchase at first, because it’s not the most esthetically pleasing look to have the screen hanging in your living room, but I got so fed up with flies that I stopped caring.
Anyway, I was super happy to get the screen up. It was an easy install. Basically you attach self-adhesive Velcro around the doorframe, tack it down with provided tacks, and then fit the screen on it. I even bought one in a proper size that fit over the wide doors. The dogs and cats learned to use it quickly, the screen snaps together well, and we have less flies.
Back to the night before last. After Gordon’s ER trip, we had an exterminator spray all around the property. So it’s midnight. I follow my husband out. He has salad tongs and a bucket of water.
Me: … ?
Gordon: Look at the door.
There are strange things sticking out of the screen on the left side, where Velcro attaches to the door frame. I look closer. Six scorpions, tails curled out.
SIX.
One right above the other along the door frame.
They looked dead, probably from poison the exterminator sprayed. Somehow they crawled up and go stuck in Velcro. So I went and got a fly swatter, just in case. And then Gordon proceeded to pull dead scorpions out with tongs and toss them into the water bucket. There are still some chunks of scorpions stuck to the screen that we can’t get out.
I wish I had taken a picture of the scorpions for you, but I was focused on scorpion extermination at the time.
So, a good buy on the screen. Ten out of ten.
So I shared the scorpion adventures on Facebook and Rachel Vincent, who by the way has an interesting looking book coming out soon, commented and said, “Years ago, I found one in my bed, flung it off the covers, then got stung when I stood up. Fun night.”
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night. My pillow fell on the floor. Guess who spent good 5 minutes beating and shaking the pillow to make sure there were no scorpions in there?
I used to check the locks before bed. Now I check the screens and the window shades. And rugs in the bathroom. Just in case. #ParanoiaRUs
We have sticky floor pads outside the lab doors where I work. Many years ago a coworker carrying loaded tray of petrie dishes went to pull the door open, looked down, and saw a small rattlesnake stuck to the sticky pad. There was a loud yell accompnied by a big crash…
Whoa, am I the first?!
yes ????
Omg ???? Nooo
Wow! That’s scary. But I laughed that Gordon requested firepower and moral support.
Hopefully, this is the end of the Scorpion Saga at House Andrews.
Sending virtual moral support.
Yes and then Ilona goes to get the fly swatter! Lol.
Sounds like you already got your money’s worth from the screens. It is not paranoia, if they are really out to get you. Are we going to see scorpions in a future book now?
+1 ????
The other night I took a picture of a very large, terrifying, flying insect that my husband refused to come look at and kill for me. Then I squashed it with a plastic TUMS bottle. Then I sent the picture to my husband in both original (for scale) and cropped & blown up (for detail).
I got a lecture the next morning about how it was a male mosquito and those are so harmless they don’t even have a method to eat, their job is to breed and die.
I would do it again in a second. First, I don’t want them to do their job. Second, still large and terrifying.
And now I scan the walls before I go to bed, because what if I’m snoring and they fly in my mouth? No.
I would not handle scorpions well. And I have a similar net to my balcony to keep flies out.
OMG. I can relate. I was watering my plants the other evening and saw the largest mosquito in my life trying to get inside my house. It was giant and monstrous, like it belonged in Jurassic Park. >_< Ran back inside my house through a different door to grab my electric fly swatter. I don't care if that mosquito was harmless. It looked like it could suck all the blood out of me or my dog. Thank goodness for electric fly swatters. Works wonders on all insects except for flies. ^_^;;
Google crane fly, I bet that’s what it was. They are totally harmless but get a bad rap because they look like “honey, I blew up the mosquito”
+1
I did! I did a reverse image search and I showed him a crane fly. He said it was possible but he was pretty sure it was a male mosquito.
Ironically, had it been the size of my hand, I would have known it to be a mosquito hawk. An insect I WANT to do its job.
If it was very large, it wasn’t a mosquito. Crane fly or May fly.
Congrats on getting the edits done! ????
It’s not paranoia. I check the doors/windows, floors and ceiling before bed, on account of scorpions, wolf spiders and roaches as big as your thumb tend to make they’re way in to the house from time to time. “Homie don’t play that!”
Hurray! Novella edits are done! You deserve all the naps! I’m very glad the screen is keeping your home scorpion free. The local indoor arachnids and I have an understanding. They can share the house, but absolutely no spiders in bed.
I’ve used the attachable screens doors and found them very effective. At my last house I also had a 6ft long gopher snake in the yard. Certain paranoid friends worried about the snake going thru the screens and wanted me to keep the glass doors closed. Nope! I told them when they’re outside catching those pesky garden killing gophers like “Snakey” does they’ll get a vote. ???? ????
Congratulations on getting the edits done and gone. I feel for you. I get aphids, somehow, near my patio door. Then I will see the ladybugs around eating the aphids. I also get various bugs and spiders crawling around near my washer and dryer in my downstairs foyer. I vacuum them up since I don’t want to squash them and get their chemical scent flying in the air. So I understand the paranoia.
When we lived in Arizona my husband found a scorpion on the toilet paper roll. It was the middle of the night. After that he always checked before sitting down????.
I am really happy to live in a place where we don’t have scorpions. The nearest thing we have is tiny pseudoscorpions, about the size of my smallest fingernail including body and claws; they don’t have tails. They live under tree bark anyway and I doubt you’d ever find one in the house. While I do find most arachnids interesting, and in some cases beautiful, I have no ambition to get on any kind of personal terms with a scorpion of any species.
Congratulations on clearing your schedule for naps. May no scorpions disturb them.
While I miss Southern cooking and good shopping, I appreciate living up in Atlantic Canada and not having to live in constant fear of every insect and snake. My husband and mother-in-law love camping and don’t understand the hatred I have for it. They’ve never had to deal with nearly stepping on cottonmouths or shaking brown recluses out of sleeping bags and shoes on Girl Scout camping trips. Dear God, the sheer terror of a campground bathroom at night.
Yes, this. Twenty years in Chicago and I still shake out my shoes, every time.
LOL! Camp May Flather or Plymouth… something? There were only two in the mid-Atlantic when I was growing up (there may still be only two, for all I know), that were purported to be the best on the East Coast. We definitely had GS attendees from up and down the coast, and even some south-central.
One time I was on a GS camping trip and one of the troops had a really old tent, which apparently had holes in the floor. They came back from a hike and found a six foot diamondback inhabiting the tent. The girls slept elsewhere that night after the ranger removed the upset snake.
Scorpions set off my husband’s paranoia, so when we see one in the house, he goes on a rampage looking under furniture and getting things off the floor. He’s never been stung, but I have.
I’ve lived in the South. I understand this.
I now live in the Chicago area. Harsh winters, totally worth it. No scorpions, no tarantulas, no giant cockroaches, very few snakes (people hike here and don’t even check the other side before stepping over a log), no chiggers.
Once at our kids park day I was chatting with another parent who was also from where I grew up and we were rejoicing in the lack of chiggers. The other parents thought we were pranking them, a la a snipe hunt. This was before cell phones (wow, I’m old). We never did convince them that chiggers were a real thing.
Don’t drive south of Chicago then my friend. Chiggars are alive and well in wooded areas of Illinois. In my early 20s, while ground camping, I discovered I have an allergic reaction to their bites!
I have my yard treated every year, just in case, prednisone shots are not fun.
So sorry you had to deal with that, it’s awful. My daughter is also allergic, as we discovered on a trip to visit family.
We live on the north shore, so we have a little buffer, but if it keeps getting warmer every year I’m afraid they’ll reach us. Enjoying the chigger-free zone while it lasts, though…
Chiggers were bad when I lived in rural Missouri. In the evening, if you were out enjoying the backyard, you could feel them bite. I would need to take a shower once I got inside to get cooled off. Winters were cold enough to kill them.
We are having a snake invasion. In the garden, in the garage – so far about 6-7 sightings in the last three weeks. Fortunately all are black snakes, rat snakes or racers. Did I mention the racers climb trees? We live in The mountains of Virginia now. Years ago we lived in San Antonio, TX. My husband sprayed the foundation of our house often. We had a terrible bug problem there and a few snakes of course.
I will never forget when my mom was recovering from her appendectomy her bed was in the living room. One night she woke up to the cat bouncing in bed…. Soon enough she discovered the live mouse toy…
The scorpion story from Rachel Vincent reminds me of that
This happened once to me, but it had been raining for a solid ten days straight (oh, Boston). And the mouse was dead. We don’t know if she found it dead or killed it. As my bf at the time said, we didn’t have to worry about more mice. No mouse would invade a house with 5 cats if it had ANY other choice. And we never did see another one.
My cat STRUTTED around all day. Queen of the Mice-Killers, she knew it.
We used to get scorpions in the house as kids. One time we were having a massive sleep over and all slept on the living room floor. My dad came out to check on us and found 2 scorpions on the walls. Being the biologist that he is, he caught them, woke us all up, and it was science time. Those suckers live for almost a year in a closed mason jar. We also had a dog stung by one, who had an allergic reaction, and turned into 3 days on iv fluids and lots of meds.
When I retired and moved to a small town, I discovered that sitting in your garage, or in front of your garage was a thing. Tv’s in the garage. Dartboards. All sorts of things. And many of them have the hanging Velcro screens of which you speak. I find it weird, but practical
This reminds me of our days in Florida and the newspapers. Every morning the routine was to bash the paper on the door frame to dislodge the big, nasty bugs that crawled into the folded paper. The locals called them “water bugs”, yeah right, they were just roaches on steroids. Here’s hoping scorpion season will soon be over!
I moved to NC in 95 & had never seen a cock roach before. All of a sudden I’m seeing these monstrously Huge bugs that scared even my cat (they were at least 3 inches big) SIL says don’t worry. Those are just water bugs. Nope nope nope…they really are cock roaches. At least according to an exterminator I talked to.
Yep, and I hate them very much. Every time I move, I make sure they do not show up in any moving boxes. Yuck!
Thank you for sharing. I’ve been contemplating that screen. Am also looking for waterproof electric fans…
You finished the edits, got some sleep, and 6 scorpions didn’t make it into the house. 🙂 That’s a definite win!!
ROFLOL here. Thank you for the post, Ilona Andrews.
Paranoid behavior can be safety experience. After I threw a hissy fit last year about the live wiggling snake Titan brought inside to play with, he hasn’t brought anything live in until nest of baby birds the other week.
When someone tells you Rhodesian ridgebacks can climb up tree after lion, believe them. When someone tells you Labradors are rescue rangers, believe them.
Good job backing Gordon up. Sounds like screen door doing its job.
We just got one of those screens! We love it for our dog. So nice not to have to worry about bugs!
Check under toilet seats. I’ve found them there, too. I’m about an hour and a half west of you, so I assume out scorpion population is similar.
Now that’s a scene for nightmares…Getting your ass stung by a scorpion in the middle of the night after sitting on the toilet :O
We get fire ants from time to time in the bathroom I’ve been bitten on the butt and thighs. But there’s something worse than butt: genitalia.
Now that is the stuff of nightmares.
The checking the toilet thing came up recently when we were discussing bugs. Apparently Palmetto (?) bugs like to hang out there.
I’ve been slowly moving down the east coast as I get older, but I forget how nice it was to grow up in a part of the country that didn’t really have venomous creatures.
I’m so paranoid about snakes now, when as a kid I was running around the woods all the time without worrying where I was stepping. I have no problem with snakes in general, I just don’t want them to be able to harm me or my pets.
When I was in 8th grade I got home from school and my Mom said she had caught a strange bug in the basement. She showed me the bottle she had it in. I took one look and said “That’s a scorpion.” Mom said “We don’t have scorpions around here “ I insisted it was a scorpion. We checked in our set of encyclopedias (yes I am that old) and I was right. Mom asked how I knew what it was. I told her that I had read a Spider-Man comic book and the villain was a scorpion. From then on I always tell people read what you enjoy. You never know where you will pick up useful information.
LOL, excellent.
My brother and SIL had one of those screens on the door to their deck. It worked pretty well. I didn’t notice how it was attached, but it seemed fairly weighted in addition to be attached to the frame, so the wind wouldn’t flap it open. And I guess so it would close well after a pet went through it. Their dog had no problem going in and out when he wanted.
When I was a kid, we just cut the bottom corner of the screen door (normal screen door) so our dog could go in and out. This was in Michigan and we didn’t have problems with bugs because they’d hang out higher on the door near the light. They never discovered the cut at the bottom of the door.
Your life, as always, is an ongoing and interesting adventure. I can say with complete sincerity I am happy with my own. ????
Many years ago my parents had a second hand store in west Texas. They priced things low and had quite a few tools. One day the only customers were three young men and my mom was stocking shelves. A scorpion crawled up her leg inside her jeans, stinging about every 4” as it went. (It probably didn’t help that she was slapping at it.)
She ended up removing her jeans to get rid of it.
This happened to me with wasps. Working in a sheep shed, when three of them flew up my jeans and commenced to defend their territory. They made it up to my thigh and I was desperately clutching a fold of the jeans, trying to keep them off my skin.
Because there were three of them, this required two hands, which left me a bit shorthanded, as it were, for the purpose of getting the jeans off. Every time I thought I’d squashed one, it let me know unmistakably that it was still in the fight. The contortions I went through were most impressive to the spectators.
Once they were off, you could see a bite mark at one end and a sting at the other end for each wasp. Meanwhile my colleagues were, quite literally, rolling around on the ground laughing. The only thing that made me feel [very] slightly better about this was that the ground was mostly covered in sheep $h!t. Ah, youth! Good times.
When I was a kid, my mom would put clothes on the line to dry in the summer. I have put on jeans and been stung by wasps that weren’t shaken out. I remember that it happened, but more like it happened to someone else. I was pretty young at the time.
I didn’t nt think I’ll ever complain about dock spiders again with a clear conscience.
I grew up in the Caribbean. At the time no one had A/C. W had these ventilation blocks that were spaces always open to let air flow through. Once I got stung because a wasp was in the bed with me. I learned quickly to shake out my sheets and pillows every night before laying down.
I stopped doing it once we moved to the US. But then I went to Okinawa with my husband. All windows closed but the bug crawl up the drain pipes or a/c vent…no one told us.
I found these 3 to 4 inch long centipedes cuddled up in my sheets one night.
Now I close all drains and spray around our vents at night. Shake all sheets and pillows down too. We are in North Carolina now, its the south so I critters here too.
I traveled to Costa Rica while I was in college for a 6 week ecology course. During that time we stayed at a research center in one of the national parks. While we were eating dinner a scorpion the size of my palm fell from the ceiling and landed between two students. The instructor two seats away screamed like a toddler and leapt onto his chair. I had never seen him move so fast. Hilarious. Admittedly if I had been sitting closer I probably would have made some sort of impressive leap away as well.
That screen is worth it’s weight in gold because otherwise those nasty evils would be in your house hiding out waiting to sting you. There’s an old adage here: Everything in S. Cental Texas either stinks, stings, or sticks. So True.
Yep, we live in far North Texas, the scorpions are bad this year. We got one in the bed and I got stung. We sprayed and haven’t seen anymore. That screen is great, ours lasted a couple of years.
I stopped walking barefoot inside in the desert after stepping on one in the bathroom. Luckily I didn’t get stung but never again.
Also shake out your shoes…
Is it really paranoia if it has happened before.
I saw a youtube video the other day that if you put pennies in a clear plastic bag filled with water and hang outside the entry way, it will keep the flies away.
I always wondered if those screens actually work, good to know they do.
FYI – All you campers out there. Do you know you can make a sleeping bag liner by sewing a flat sheet top hem to bottom hem. Leave the side open 24 to 30 inches for ease of getting in and out. Much easier to wash and dry than the entire sleeping bag. Works like a charm and handy on deployments too.
Love this idea! Prefer a sheet to sleep over a sleeping bag, too. Thanks!
…I just climb into a duvet cover. (Sans duvet, of course.)
(Clarification: My duvet cover openings do not have buttons or snaps or anything else that would be uncomfortable to lie on.)
I am trying to remember the name of the author that writes kind of sci-fi paranormal investigation. And he passed away on June 28, 2020, I cannot find his name and I loved his work. Thanks.
Hi Karen,
Is it Anton Strout? https://ilona-andrews.com/2020/anton-strout-and-claw-order/
Holy smokes! Yes, best buy EVER.
Reminds me of that saying, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you! “
All the nopes to scorpions. I jump and flail around like a maniac when I see bees – forget scorpions, I would need to live in a bubble. So, congrats on the edited novella and creating a working barrier against those scary scorpions!
I’ll take the snow, thanks. Every time my husband and I talk about becoming snowbirds someone in the south mentions scorpions or snakes or alligators in the swimming pool… We get 250-350 inches of snow over the winter… But it’s not going to sting me or poison me or eat me.
Ok, you win… lol… I’m going to stop bitching about mosquitoes, stink bugs, horse flies and deer ticks. Every time I want to whine I’m going to say to myself , at least it’s not scorpions ????
I would be afraid a snake would come in????
I am never moving there!!!!!
#welcometotexas
Checking shoes, etc, for scorpions is the learned behavior of any true Texan. Welcome, Ilona. You’re one of us now.
Scorpions and snakes in Costa Rica – Scorpions in bath towels, in shoes, in pants legs, in closets… and snakes coming in through drain pipes and through the floor, and in produce. We had a family of coral snakes living under the house and found a Fer de Lance in a banana bunch. None of this compares to the Scorpions and snakes in TX though.
Well, that’s Texas for you. You people who live there are made of sterner stuff.
It’s not paranoia if they are out to get you. Just sayin.
I woke up with one on my face, and we got used to doing a bed check, shaking out all of our clothes, shoes, etc.. in California. Between those, the tarantulas, earthquakes, and the darn allergies, I noped right out of there as soon as I could. California was NOT a pleasant place for me. I’m highly allergic to eucalyptus. Guess what surrounded our house?
I moved to NC from NY a couple of years ago. The first time I saw a cockroach I freaked. Had the exterminators coming the next day. Then friends told me “that’s a palmetto bug, not a roach“.
Took me two weeks to figure out they were lying and just wanted me to stop freaking out.
Exterminators come out regularly!
So I was lying in bed one night reading from my kindle the only light in the room and just at the corner of my vision I saw something scuttle across the top of my bed clothes; in seconds I threw the bedclothes back and lept out of bed. My husband raised his sleepyhead and demanded to know what I was doing and I chattered things about spiders and bedclothes. Then I noticed the body of a curled up spider, which was rather large on the wooden plinth that runs around the edge of our bed. The spider must’ve froze as I threw the bedclothes back and I must’ve sat on it as I was trying to get out of bed in a hurry. I still get the shivers thinking about it.
When I lived in the foothills above Fresno, California I found one on my bedroom wall once. It got sucked up by the vacuum. Luckily it was the only one I ever saw there. But it did freak me out a bit at the time.
We are having rattlesnakes this year. We live at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. With the drought and hills behind us getting graded for new homes, the wildlife is moving down the hill. Caught one behind the barn two nights ago. A neighbor who raises ball pythons catches the rattlesnakes and takes them to an undisturbed hill.
I have never had to deal with the kind of insectoid livestock you guys do.
I got used to cockroaches in Los Angeles, though.
Mostly, I got them before they got me; but there is an emergency room tech in Los Angeles (probably retired by now) that I will be forever grateful to because he held my hands and talked to me about anything that came to mind so I could hold still while the doctor dug the cockroach out of my right ear at 2:00 AM.
In your ear! Eeeeew. I think you win.
I agree! I cringed at that. ????
Honest, I wasn’t trying to make it a contest. I’m thrilled I’ve never had to deal with a scorpion.
omg…. god bless your soul
Congratulations on edits (braining is hard), and death of scorpions (scorpioncide?).
A couple years ago for a wedding anniversary I got us each a flyswatter! One of the best gifts ever! We have our 20th anniversary coming up in August how do I top this?!
And they’re colorful ????
Wow! Looks pretty =D
An electric flyswatter, which are super fun to use… or a salt gun, my kid and hubby are more likely to shoot each other than flies with the salt gun though!!!
Happy anniversary!!!
Congratulations on your edits and your excellent screen purchase. And can I say that I am really glad I live in Maine.
No poisonous snakes.
No poisonous or deadly spiders.
No Scorpions.
One word, Minges!
+ 1000 for Canada, especially Newfoundland and other islands on the Atlantic Ocean. Happy Canada Day!
(And yes, I was delighted to see the reference to a Great Big Sea CD in one of the Curran stories! Great Big Sea are great! Try the song “Ordinary Day”. This is the story where Jim brings the photos/story of Kate, and Curran rolls the plate like a fruit roll-up.)
I’m sitting here going well I can’t complain about the terrible summer weather in Ireland & the flies/spiders, at LEAST I don’t have SCORPIONS!?!! (& Snakes!)
XD
Who needs a Rogan when they have a Gordon?
Our huge invasion of cicadas is now over in Maryland. Looking forward to being able to finally spending some time on our deck this holiday weekend.
I’m also in Maryland. It’s been so quiet the past week or so, now that the cicadas are gone…
I’m not laughing. Really, I’m not. 😉
Scorpions are gross and I’m glad the screen protected you! I love Rachel Vincent!
You would really love Australia then -_-
Every morning, shake clothes, shake shoes, shake jacket, shake towels before use, then shake bedspread etc.
Probably a lot of wrist injuries here. Just don’t move to Queensland.
Well, that was unexpected and nightmare-inducing. Any thoughts about moving to Texas for lower cost of living now out the window.
P.S. Pictures? No thank you. Yuck!
This is why cowboys shake out their boots in the morning ????
I thought “magnetic screen” just before I read the next paragraph. Good for you!
I’ve read, but can’t confirm the veracity, that lavender keeps scorpions away. Keep some cuttings at each window & door? Even if it doesn’t work, it’s 1 of my favorite smells.
I am so curious about the “novella”. I wonder what the title is.
We live out between Austin and Bastrop. I’ve just started shaking out any close-toed shoes and clothes before putting them on. We had scorpions at our old house in NW Austin but nothing like out here! Pest people come out every other month and this is still my routine. Hang in there!
Oooh. In the fifties my mom was at a very elegant cocktail party in a very elegant dress when a scorpion crawled up her skirt. She did the fastest strip tease ever in front of all the party guests and a huge picture window. Yes, it was in Texas.
I’m happy to see that your cost for the exterminator was worth spending. When we lived in Houston, I told a neighbor that I had a gecko in my house and couldn’t catch it to put it out and it was driving me nuts! She informed me that she was jealous of my critter because they eat cockroaches. It’s insane that you have to have reptiles around to keep cockroaches at bay. I left it in the house.
One day here in Ohio, I went to my laundry room and reached for my light switch when something caught the corner of my eye and I turned to see what it was. A majorly large wolf spider was parked an inch from the light switch. The only one here with me was our son, who was young. I went upstairs, got a fly swatter and had him come down there with me. His job, I told him, was to stand 6 feet away from the spider and if I missed, tell me where the thing went. Fortunately, I hit it with the first swing, but I needed that moral support to do it. Those things attack when you miss, and I hate them.
I’m glad the edits are done. I hope the scorpions are done. I’m glad you can keep flies out. May your life be as dull as dishwater for a while.
We lost a tree in a storm this morning, which I knew had happened only because our ancient miniature horses came galloping out of the “field” into the area behind the house, huffing. Sure enough, massive tree piece down, massive tree ruined, $1800 to get rid of it tomorrow morning. When old horses run, there has to be a reason. The idiots stand out in storms to get a shower, I guess. They stayed out in the rain instead of in the barn, but they were terrified when that tree came down. I’m ready for my dull life to resume. There have been way too many interesting things happening here lately. No scorpions here, though! Score one for me.
Totally get it!!! Omg I found a wolf spider in my bed the other night. The kind that scientists say have individual “personalities”…. I got rid of it and have had creepy crawlies ever since. My daughter was worried it laid eggs in the house and so I learned that they actually hold onto to the eggs and the hatched spiderlings ride around on mama until ready to go. It’s the only spider that cares for young and somehow that was reassuring lol. I’m really glad we don’t have scorpions in Massachusetts’
Back in the ‘80s, I spent a summer in Israel working on an archaeological dig. We lived in tents and learned to check our shoes for scorpions. The one time that I found a scorpion in my shoe, I screamed and threw the shoe, accidentally hitting one of my tent-mates square in the belly. She then shrieked and threw her hairbrush (in her hand at the time) at me, nailing me in side of the head. By the time we untangled ourselves from that, we couldn’t find the scorpion. We then spent the rest of the day on edge. Fun times… Scorpions and all, it was probably the best summer I ever spent.
You guys need some house lizards running around and eating your scorpions. Or an owl. That would be cool, and you can train it to fetch the mail and bring it inside. Pretend you’re getting invitations to Hogwarts and get rid of scorpions at the same time- win win.
Geez, and I had to read this before going to bed. What was I thinking? Maybe I won’t dream of scorpions. I have to hope. Interesting tale, and clever delivery, but still, Scorpions???
Good job on edit completions AND the nap!
I’ve lived in the Deep South, Hawaii, the northeast and now the midwest. Every one of those places has some nasty bugs. The cockroaches in Hawaii were enormous. But not as scary as scorpions, just a bit creepy.
Found a friend standing on an ottoman screaming her head off, and a giant (3-4 inch) cockroach waving his little feelers around. She had been vacuuming and the vacuum cleaner was still running, lying on the floor. I picked it up, vacuumed up our visitor and she calmed down. I quietly emptied the vacuum cleaner bag. No need to have her up on something else screaming again, right?
In Hawaii we had to watch for centipedes. They were about 5-6 inches long and VERY hard to kill. Seriously, you had to hit them HARD with a 2 x 4 to have any luck in making them actually dead. I’m not fond of making other creatures suffer, so kinda dead was not cutting it for me.
Banana spiders would have freaked yo ass out, man. They were about the diameter of your palm, yellow and black. But they were harmless and really pretty. Still, wouldn’t want them to crawl on me.
30 plus years in SO CA and I never once saw a scorpion. My husband saw them a lot as he and his friend did a lot of night hiking and mountain hiking (not so much climbing as hiking).
Grossest bug? Potato bugs (Jerusalem Crickets). Eeeeewwwww! They are butt-ugly. And BTW, please google them and look for a picture of their faces. I swear this has to be the inspiration for the face of the alien in Predator.
When in comes to venomous wildlife, paranoia is a sane response. I live in New Mexico. We have scorpions, snakes, and cute little mice that can infect you with plague ????
You have my sympathy. My recent wildlife adventure was a couple of weeks ago. I heard what I thought was one of the cats covering in the litter box, and she was hitting the side of the box repeatedly so I got out of bed to see who it was and to tell tell her she’d covered enough. I opened the door to the basement, and did not see a car. I did see a small snake on floor of the basement, which is the unfinished side of the lower level. The noise was a small mouse in a wash bucket jumping up and down trying to get out, but it couldn’t jump high enough. We live with woods surrounding is so there are occasional mice, who don’t last long indoors as we have four cats. Don’t know how the snake got into the unfinished part of the downstairs, but I suspect up the drainage for the a/c that is in the floor and covered with a small grate. It was a very skinny snake. I got a clear plastic container over the snake so it couldn’t slither anywhere while I dealt with the mouse, which involved taking the bucket outside and dumping the mouse out. I then got a thin piece of cardboard under the snake and plastic container and took it across the street to the woods and gently let everything drop into the weeds while I scurried back into the house. I retrieved the container in the morning when I could see there was no snake. I think it was a small garter snake, but I really do not like snakes. But I’ll take a baby snake over dead or alive scorpions.
thank you for sharing…now i know the inspiration of the Roman scene, when Kate and Curran ask him to officiate their wedding…
I apparently once had a nightmare when still stationed in Texas where I thought I saw a scorpion in the bed! So I woke my husband up, freaked him out saying I saw a scorpion and he was madly looking through the sheets on the waterbed for a few minutes. Then he asked me; how did you see it in the pitch black dark? Oh….yeah. Ok maybe it was a nightmare! Lol I had just had a baby at Fort Hood’s hospital 2 days before and we weren’t getting any sleep anyways!
Can you do a retractable screen door? That would keep out bugs and can use of doors open out
Useful info! TYVM!
I have had blood poisoning twice due to insect bites. I’ve stopped feeling bad about my paranoia since it helped me catch the 2nd incident early on.
Wash all cuts and wounds with soap and water. And a streak running up your arm from the bite/wound site is probably not a good thing????
Spiders around here, lots of spiders. Mostly seasonal residents; they like to come out and build gigantic webs all in one night. Webs carefully placed to catch human prey as they are built across walkways, from deck railings to the roof, and crisscrossing over stairs. I think of them as the Spiders of Bellevue (like the Umbrellas of Cherbourg) to give them a whimsical title. One greeted me the first night we moved to our new house by dashing towards my sleeping bag. He was civilly acknowledged but not invited to stay.
It’s 1 a.m. and I’m reading your blog and enjoying all the buggy stories. I happen to look down and there is this huge spider crawling (very rapidly) across the floor. Now I know what the cat was so intent on a few minutes ago! The spider is no more.
I’m so glad I live in New Zealand we don’t have any snakes and only 2 spiders that can give a painful bite.
If you move next, come to Switzerland!
No nasty, stingy wildlife here!!!
Greets and happy dreams for the future!
Inga
You have giant spiders for pets and scorpions are the big bad arachnid, lol. Sorry, not funny since a hospital visit happened and that’s serious.
Glad Gordon is okay and that House Andrews is well.
Scorpions are hunting carnivorous bugs. Unlike spiders (ugh, shiver), scorpions don’t have a hole, hut or web to weave, steal or trap and poison their prey. They seek they’re prey out.
What attracts your scorpions?
Try buying frozen blood worms and/or frozen pinkies. Put them in a bowl and add water. Set it outside your open door before the sun sets somewhere the family pets can’t get to. If you can’t exterminate them, give them somewhere else to go other than your door. Will also attract the ants, bonus.
Though that screen looks like it’s doing it’s job can’t hurt to try to keep them away from it if you can.
Pillow safety is very important 🙂
When we were stationed in Colorado I would leave the glass sliders open (they did have a screen) in the bedroom at night because we didn’t have windows. One morning my husband texts from work “there was a scorpion thing in the room this morning”. I assumed he meant some strange large bug since he said “scorpion thing”, though I did begin using the A.C. instead of leaving the door open. Fast forward approx 6 months and our dog starts freaking out around the tv console late at night. Back and forth. Back and forth. She had locked on to something, I assumed we had a mouse, maybe a large fly. I’m watching this unfold waiting for mystery critter to emerge AND IT’S A GOD DAMN SCORPION AND I LOSE MY MIND. My husband then promptly reminds me we had them in the bedroom and I ask he be more direct in his descriptions in future…
I’m born and raised in Texas. I remember at camp one year they warmed us to shake out our shoes every morning because the scorpions would hide in them. Glad your pillow at least was scorpion free!
I live in Nebraska. I haven’t ever seen a scorpion, but I do believe there is a small scorpion.
????
So there really are monsters under the bed. The kids were right all along!
Editing is finished ! Yey ! Happy for you ???? Hope you can relax and enjoy now ????
OMG for the scorpions ????????????????
O-O. We have mosquitoes that would drain you dry in Wisconsin. But scorpions? Just no. I will take my mosquitos and put on more lemon balm.
My Dad grew up in Overtown in Miami in the 30’s. The houses were built on posts for airflow. All the kids would play under the houses with scorpions. Fast forward 50 years to me finding a scorpion in my bedroom. I jumped on the bed and screamed for my Dad. He explained how you step on the tail to straighten it out, then pick it up. That man proceeded to chase me with a scorpion. Fun times.
That’s funny! But at least they were dead!!! I don’t blame you for paranoia tho.
I hate scorpions and the monster American roach. Did you know those things can fly if cornered by your broom in the garage? I screamed as the thing flew in my face and frankly I’m not a screamer. It was just such a frigging surprise.
Congrats on finishing the edits!! I imagine you’re happy to have that one over.
Wonderful to have finished the edits AND get some real sleep. As regards scorpions, that’s not paranoia, that’s good sense. The screen is a great idea. I had one on my old greenhouse. It worked very well. I spent most of my life happily trotting around through the woods of northern New England and Atlantic Canada. In recent years I worried about ticks, but bears? Moose? Nah, saw a few, but they were never a problem. Never did see a rattlesnake although technically they did inhabit some of the areas I was in. Now I am in the south and you could not pay me to wander through the woods and along the creeks for fear of venomous snakes. My husband laughs at me, but I carry a snake stick when I garden and literally beat the bushes before I prune or reach into any plants. If I ever see a scorpion around my house, there will be major death throes in the crawling insect population.
I love gargoyles! They are so versatile and very cool.
I’m up in Canada.
My sleep is too precious to worry about bugs/scorpions/etc that I would take it as a sign from God to move and I’m an atheist!
My youngest son, age 30, can’t stand bugs even during the day so if he was to experience that at all he would be elsewhere …
Hate to add another paranoia to the pile, but my aunt used to live in Boerne. She met me out front of the house when I went to visit so she could point out the small scorpion warming himself on the lit doorbell button (in case I missed it).
You may have already seen these type of retractable screens:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Andersen-36-in-x-80-in-LuminAire-White-Retractable-Screen-Door-90001/302197300#overlay
They look really nice both extended and retracted. I can also attest that they are pretty sturdy. It was night out, the screens were black, and I was at a neighbor’s house (I point that out as a defense against being klutz.). I ran into the screen at the front door and bounced back. (◑_◐) No damage except a very deep blush of humiliation. Made an impression on me (no pun intended) that what looked a bit delicate was actually pretty sturdy.
My mom lives in an apartment and the units have screens on the balcony doors that similar to yours… her cats manage them beautifully, and mom enjoys having the balcony door open when the weather is nice!
How does a pet manage a screen? I find this mildly confusing. Perhaps because one of my dogs is remarkably harebrained. I am glad the scorpions ended up in the screen and not in the pillow, though!
I have one and my dog closes his eyes and dramatically pushes through the screen (imagine throwing his snout through it). It is incredibly lightweight and mine is magnetic at the center.
We used to have a sliding patio window/door and a lightweight screen door on the outside of that. When the glass door was open with just the screen in place our cat would extend their claws through the screen and move their front leg to the side. This would slide the screen just enough for them to slip through. They never closed the screen after them though.
I didn’t see if someone else in the comments had mentioned an UltraViolet flashlight. Since scorpions fluoresce, you can hunt when it is dark out with an ultraviolet light.
We have plenty of scorpions in my neighborhood. That is one way to get rid of them or just do a check for comfort level.
Six?! 0_0 Wow that screen paid for itself in one fell sweep ^_~. I’m glad someone else mentioned this, but it’s pretty cool how scorpions glow under a black light and pretty obvious, if you’re checking every night it might save you time and effort to get a black light flashlight. I’m pretty frugal, but if I was checking every night for scorpions I’d buy one. Then again with your awesome screen door you may not need to ^_^
Where I am, we are shaking our shoes for black widow spiders. Blech!!
I am having great success this year keeping flies away with unwrapped bars of Irish Spring around the patio. Between that and our new magnetic screen (2021 version), even my office is a fly-free zone.
Irish Spring? I may try it. Right now the dogs bark every time they want it or out, which is better than flies but not much. :/
Our weekend adventure in North Texas was bats in the house. 10 of them at least flying around the living room. A couple of them hid and found a way into our bedroom. They were little evening bats, and no fun whatsoever.
We had a small bat crawl inside our tent trailer while camping. I was somewhat aware of something flying past my head but thought it was a moth or such. Finally the soft thudding/thumping woke me up enough as I thought one of our kids was needing a toilet and was having trouble with their shoes. I grabbed a flashlight and started walking over to their side of the trailer when the bat flew past me. I hit the floor so fast while whisper-yelling for my husband to get up. Of course this woke the kids up too. I had them burrow deeper into their sleeping bags while my hero of a husband grabbed his leather gloves and tried to catch the bat, naked while I tried to use the flashlight to locate/lure it through the opened door. We were finally successful but it has left me very cautious about sealing all the Velcro fasteners on the tent trailer now.
Should I say anything about the time mom made a milkshake and why we now store grasses and mugs upside-down?
No. You really don’t want to know.
Have the pets ever been stung? My dog seems to investigate all the dangerous creatures nearby but no scorpions up north. This creeped me out so much, definitely would be upping my lockdown routine too.
My big fear is spiders and ticks. Ticks just l-o-v-e me. More than once my husband has had to grab me and swing around so he is between me and the road. Because yes there is a tick on me and the shirt is coming off! I don’t care if I’m in the house or the yard. The clothes are coming off!
Bee down the pants leg. I sympathize. I still don’t know how the bee got there…
We purchased our magnetic screen earlier this summer. Best buy ever …. I can’t say no bugs but close to none and our dogs manage the screen with ease.
I gotta say scorpians, black widows, and big bugs in general are one of the top reasons I choose to live north, with lots of snow, and sometimes cold … but NO bugs or creepy crawlers that make me fear my shoes, my carpets, or my curtains ….
You’all who live in the heat with the creepies are braver than me.
I have several of those magnetic screen doors. If you bought the $10 one… I hear they won’t last very long. I bought the $25 one maybe at Walmart? But also it’s on “as seen on TV.” I love them.
Year ago, I was working for the National Park Service in the desert. I would place my shoes on the bedside table each night in case I needed to get up in the middle of the night. I only ever found one scorpion, but it was in the bath tub. I was also cautioned to take a flash light if I needed to go outside after dark as rattle snakes would come and lay on any pavement for the warmth. Instead of scorpions on the screen doors it was tarantulas. Fun times.
One of my earliest memories is going to visit family in Crosbyton, Texas – maybe 1966-67? We went into an old store and there were tarantulas hanging on the wall and on the screen door. The family just walked in like it was nothing, and I was freaking out in the car telling Mom to hurry up and go back to Georgia.
A scorpion in the bed? Lovely … or maybe not. I was immediately reminded of the western novels of Louis L’amour, and how the cowboys would always tip their boots upside down before putting them on.
Random question that maybe someone can help with: I could have sworn I saw a book about how Dina’s parents met. I looked around this site and Amazon but don’t see it. Was it discontinued or did I just imagine this book lol
Hey Tamara,
It’s not a book, but Helen and Gerard meeting is a fan service snippet which can be found here https://ilona-andrews.com/gerard-demille-and-helen-meet/
I hope this helps ????
I don’t think I could live someplace with attack scorpions!!!!!
Hail, House Andrews, Bane to Scorpions Everywhere! (So glad you’re taking care of those critters.) For the giveaway – my answer is the Fae because there is such a variety of them and because pretty much none of them can be trusted. (but, somehow, they’re so darned sexy!)
One more reason why I like the north! We may get snow (beautiful, blinding snow), but there are no scorpions! ????
Thank goodness you put up those screens.
Two words: Flame Thrower.
I was stung in the hand by a scorpion sitting in my bath towel while I was living in Belize. I panicked and immediately threw the towel at my husband (I think I was hoping he would get rid of it). He was less than pleased but ended up killing it with a shoe. Then we had fun with a venom extractor. I took some antihistamine and drank a very large glass of rum and slept for 12 hours. All was fine in the morning.
I love screen doors especially the wooden ones. I remember that was were we put the fan on cool nights to save on electricity.
I have one of those screens and I love it. Except when the magnets stick to the steel storm door.
Eesh. A good friend who lived in Bryan returned home after having her first child. That night when she went to bed, a scorpion stung her foot under the covers. Talk about insult to injury – she was exhausted & dealing with recovery from childbirth, then when she finally got to try to rest, a sneak attack. Things that make you go brrr.
Wood ash is useful in controlling flea beetle in your veg garden.
Doing another Kate read-through.
I also live in Central Texas, and in a wooded area where scorpions show up in the dam**est places… I have nearly had cardiac failure several times, yet I am the designated bug killer in my household, so I must tackle the horrifying crawling things–that are sometimes on the f***ing CEILING —and are freaking FAST—and so far, I have not been stung, but often have laid awake at night checking the floor, the ceiling, the bed… I truly sympathize. Both my husband and son have been stung, and say it’s about like a bee sting. Not fun, but also not normally life-threatening… I pray I never find out. It’s been ten years now, and still a ‘virgin’…So, I truly sympathize. I moved here from the Gulf Coast, where scorpions DO NOT happen…WTF?
The last few days have been crazy here – giant spider strolling down the hallway, a wasp in my office that disappears when I go to get something to kill it, scorpion in my son’s room – note a spin in the Dyson mini-vac did NOT kill it and tiny frog in the kitchen that the dogs were trying to eat (released safely outside). That’s on top of the baby rattlesnake on the back porch – that had recently shed its skin in the garage and the weekly surprise scorpion in the hallway. Best of all was grabbing the laundry from the front-load washer which is on a pedestal drawer (and I have found a dead one after a load before – was it in there already? did I grab a pile of laundry with a live one?!), leaned in to get the wet laundry and see something waving near my face. Jump back to find a live scorpion that had walked over a package of sanitizing wipes on top of the washer and somehow gotten its tail stuck on the sticky part of the lid. After wacking it @87 times had to figure out how to release it without touching it. Texas is awesome!!
I’m in Australia so this likely won’t shock anyone, but here we’ve learnt the hard way that you always smack your shoes on the wall before you put them on (especially if you left them outside), and always shake out towels and clothes if they’ve been on the floor.
No one wants to get bitten by a whitetail, or worse, a redback.
In Mexico, after you graduate from medical school you have to do X amount of years of social service (don’t know how many) for underprivileged communities. My mom’s social service was in a very remote location, the sort of desolate, dusty towns where there is one streetlight in the center of town. This area is known to have lots of scorpions, and subsequently my mom ended up treating lots of scorpion stings. The really cool thing is that my mom got so good at hearing the scorpions that she could tell where they were, even if they were in the walls, and became The Scorpion Killer. I picture her as a Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One thing she always told us to do there, always shake your shoes out before putting them on in the morning. You don’t want to slip into a scorpion sting!
When I lived in Austin, there were tarantulas on the screens.