I won't even step on them. The thought of having one touch any part of me is just not something I can deal with. In our house, wife deals with roaches. Anything else, I'll deal with.

For those in Houston, we use Biotech for our pesticide service and we'll get maybe one or two in our house per year if we get any at all. They come once per year and spray your home. That's a service I'll pay 3x for if it means no roaches.

TX_COWDOC said:

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Can't stand em and I kill them on sight. The population can get away from you so no catch and release.

As others have stated, it's common to cut the stinger off and throw on someone. Particularly among the Hispanic guys I was around growing up while working at my grandfather's steel fab shop in San Antone.

Lastly- I believe cats can hear them. On numerous occasions, I've seen a house cat zero in on them and target them for killing. Either smell or sound. Glad for it.

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One night while we were in bed the wife said something was scratching at our door it was a very light scratching. I opened the door and it stopped. I closed the door and it started again. I traced the sound down the the strike plate. Opened the door again and there was a scorpion inside the plate. Crazy.

I'm a little outside Houston, but just signed up for an annual pest control, guy says it will keep roaches and scorpions out. We'll see, fingers crossed.

If it's during normal waking hours and I can catch them and take them outside away from the house.

Otherwise, they get squished.

We had a cat that was fantastic and finding them. He had a particular meow be used when he found a scorpion and we knew right away that's what was going on. He was a good kitty.

Here is a horror story. Scorpions are live-bearers. Wife and I were camping in SE Arizona (Aravaipa Canyon) and we set the tent up at near dark. Next morning we hiked the canyon and came back to break camp. I had set the tent up on a whole nest of .5" baby scorpions. They were crawling everywhere. Good thing I always put a tent up on poly-ethylene first as an added moisture barrier. I think the Arizona Bark Scorpion is the most potent stinger in US.

I'm from the Mississippi Delta and grew up in the 80's/90's. The roaches I dealt with down there were unbelievable. My high school was infested with them. They got in most everyone's houses and there were times where I didn't sleep in anticipation of them crawling on me. They were upwards of 3" long and FAST. Since I moved to Northwest Arkansas, I haven't seen as much as one of them. That alone was worth the move.

Good to hear. I'm on the cusp of quitting my job and just retiring. We've contemplated a few different places to retire to, one of which is the Fayetteville / Bentonville area, the other is Coeur d'Alene, ID. One of my criteria about leaving my home in The Woodlands area is absolutely no roaches, or if there are roaches, they're not problematic like what I would consider Houston's issues with them. What you tell me encourages me about NW Arkansas.

Scorpions serve no purpose. I squash them. Everything else is catch and release.

Tailgate88 said:

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Scorpions serve no purpose. I squash them. Everything else is catch and release.

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They eat other bugs.

My first party chief when I was in land surveying was a big gardener. He had a rule: "if it's a slow bug, step on it. If it's a fast bug, leave it alone. It's on its way to kill another bug"

If they are outside, fine. There are no other bugs in my living room or bed.

When we moved into our new construction house in the hill country I would find several every single night. Over the months that gradually tapered off to only a couple of week. They never bothered me but there were so many I would flush them down the toilet. Just slide a piece of paper under them and toss them in. They've got a lot of brown juice in them so you don't want to smash them. I've never been stung by one, but I still check my shoes every time I put them on even though I don't live around there anymore.

What did bother me are the two red headed centipedes I found in the house. Finding a foot long centipede as you're getting into bed in the dark still has me checking my sheets every night 20 years later.

I see very few bugs up here. I live in a small subdivision on the outskirts of Rogers, next to some cow pastures, and still have only killed 3 snakes in my backyard in the last 10 years. We hear the occasional coyote. There are virtually no mosquitoes. My biggest complaint is the number of rabbits in our neighborhood (their pee kills my grass in spots) and the flies in the summer, when I'm grilling. That being said, after growing up in the MS Delta and dealing with all of that down there, it's an invited 180 up here.