Unfortunately for Tanesha Jones of Frisco, they’re paying regular visits to her home too.
FRISCO, Texas — When Tanesha Jones moved to Frisco from her native Chicago, she expected maybe a bit of southern culture shock. She did not expect scorpions. And she did not expect them to pay her regular visits.
“I usually see one a week, one or two a week,” she said. “With me being from Chicago, I’m not used to this type of thing…it’s like oh my God!”
She added sticky traps as her line of defense inside her front door and at doors leading to and from her garage.
“They come in and get stuck and they die,” she said.
In the last few months, she says she trapped nearly a dozen as they crawled under her doors.
“Yeah, it’s frightening to say the least,” Jones said about the scorpion encounters. “I guess they’re welcoming me to Texas. I’m a country girl at heart. I’m not too squeamish. These I am squeamish about.”
Ashley Morgan-Olvera, M.S., Director of Research & Education at the Texas Invasive Species Institute at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, said that a wetter summer means there’s a lot more “creepy crawlies” around.
Morgan-Olvera says Tanesha’s scorpions appear to be striped bark scorpions, native to Texas, venomous but not lethal, and growing about 2-and-3/8 inches long. They are often found in North Texas homes, like Tanesha’s. Her townhome is in far north Frisco next to a greenbelt, and Morgan-Olvera surmises the scorpions are likely living and breeding in the wood mulch near the front door.
“They’re starting to come out, the temperatures are lowering. They’re getting one last breeding session in before wintertime,” Morgan-Olvera said. “And she probably is seeing a new brood come out every night because they’re going to be hatching and most active at night.”
Entomologists also say several species of scorpion in Texas can serve a useful purpose. They eat spiders, ants and other pests. But that’s not reassuring for Tanesha, who has made a decision.
“I bought a new house, I’m moving. I can’t take it,” she said. In fact, she closed on a new house the day we interviewed her.
“I’m moving. They can have it,” she said with a laugh. “We can’t live here together, only me. There’s only room for one.”