Scorpion surge causes panic

A surge in scorpion sightings in the East Valley has some people developing phobias over the creatures.

Christina has it bad.

When she sees a scorpion, "I want to harm it. I want to, like, convulse and get the shakes. The idea is just making me nervous. Like, ahhh...."

Valley exterminator Chris Michael said scorpions are arachnids, like spiders, and that Christina is suffering from arachnophobia.

She has plenty of company, Michael said, judging by the number of calls he's getting.

"We have received many calls where they are screaming, yelling and wanting us to be there right then and there, almost like a 911 call," Michael said.

His most memorable scorpion house call?

"In the Mesa area, we sat down with a guy and he was in complete agony. He didn't know if he was supposed to call the police or what. He thought the scorpions were literally coming from his skin out of every part of his house, on his clothes and out of his body."

Michael said some people refuse to go back into their houses until the scorpions are killed and removed.

Some people, he said, "believe their houses are either haunted by scorpions, in a lot of cases, they just think they're everywhere -- coming out of every crack, crevice, light, everything."

He said it's mostly women who are afraid.

"We can start to calm them down, but there are a few cases that we have probably no hope on."

The good news, Michael said, is that scorpion stings rarely cause death.

Robert Vasquez, who calls himself the "Scorpion Master," has some tips for controlling scorpions.

As for food, he said, "They love crickets, that's their McDonald's... Crickets are so plentiful and juicy for them. I don't know if they'd take down a roach, they probably would."

Scorpions also like snacking on spiders, insects and each other, Vasquez said.

Vasquez is the person who came up with the Scorpion Light -- handy-dandy UV flashlights that find scorpions, which glow in the dark.

"We also happen to own an ACE Hardware store where we would listen to our customers," he said. "And they were looking for an LED solution -- something that's small and compact, but has the power of the black light, so they can just fit it in their pocket and they can go out and hunt."

Vasquez said, "Hunting scorpions at night is one of your best defenses against the scorpions."

Places to look are the perimeters of your house, near brush and debris, and block walls around houses.

"The block wall is what I call the scorpions' super highway, because they love to live in it and they can go from one house to the next to the next via the block wall," said Vasquez.

At his Gilbert home, Vasquez sprinkles a type of diatomaceous earth around his wall and inside the crevices, also around the outside of his house.

"What it does is it pierces the body like fiberglass, it cuts them up and dehydrates them," he said.

He also spreads multi-insect killer on his lawn to get rid of the scorpions' food supply.

One final tip -- Vasquez said if you see an adult scorpion, use spray to kill it, try not to kick it. They carry their babies on their backs, and Vasquez said if you kick them, the babies "probably will go on your leg."