Bark Scorpions in Your Home: Why “It’s Just Part of Living in Arizona” Isn’t Good Enough
Fear, Control & Why Solving The Right Problem Changes Everything
By Georgia Clubb, Founder, Seal Out Scorpions
I didn’t get into this work because I’m interested in bugs.
I didn’t grow up fascinated by pest control.
And I certainly didn’t choose this path because I admired the pest control industry.
I got here because extreme fear forced me to learn.
The phobia took hold after years of living with scorpions in my home. Then the worst thing I could imagine finally happened: I was stung in bed while my three-year-old son was lying next to me.
If you’ve never experienced something like that, it’s hard to explain what it does to you. The pain fades. But your sense of safety doesn’t recover so easily. Your bed, the place where you’re supposed to rest, recover, and let your guard down, no longer feels neutral. It feels threatening.
From that point forward, sleep wasn’t sleep. It was vigilance. Listening. Scanning. Reacting to every sensation, every movement, every imagined threat.
And that moment didn’t stand alone. Over the years and across four homes, I was stung again. Once, a scorpion slipped under my watch while I was pulling a weed. Another time, one crawled between my flip-flop and my foot. One crawled up my pant leg unnoticed and stung my calf three times.
Each incident reinforced the same message: you are not safe in your own home.
What stayed with me the longest wasn’t the pain.
It was the fear, the helplessness and lack of control, no matter what we did or who we hired to help.
The Problem People Are Actually Living With
One of the most common things homeowners are told, especially in the Southwest, is: “This is just part of living in Arizona.”
On the surface, that sounds practical. Even realistic.
But psychologically, it can be devastating.
Because what it really communicates is: There’s nothing you can do. Accept the risk. Learn to live with or get over the fear.
That response doesn’t solve the problem people are actually living with.
The real problem isn’t scorpions.
The real problem is the loss of agency.
When people feel powerless, fear compounds. When they don’t understand why something is happening or how to interrupt it, the stress never shuts off. And when professionals, friends, or even family dismiss that fear as “too much,” it deepens the sense that no one is really addressing what matters.
That realization changed everything for me, when the stakes became too high and the fear too exhausting to ignore.
Instead of reacting emotionally, as is common with phobias, I started learning structurally.
How Knowledge Dissolved Fear
I didn’t cure my fear by avoiding scorpions.
I cured it by understanding them, and removing the conditions that allowed them into my home.
I learned how scorpions behave, how they move through environments, how and why they enter homes, and, most importantly, what actually interrupts that chain. Not just chemicals. Not just routine treatments. But structure, access points, and conditions.
As my understanding grew, something unexpected happened. The fear began to loosen. Not because the risk magically disappeared, but because I could see it clearly, and I realized I had more control than I thought.
Knowledge restored control.
Control began to restore calm.
That shift didn’t just change how I lived in my own home, it became the foundation of how I help others.
When Clients Say “I’m Sleeping Again”
Recently, a newer client emailed me after we completed sealing work and transitioned her to a prescriptive pest control strategy.
She shared that she had been stung by a scorpion while asleep in her bed, an experience she described as traumatizing. When she told her previous pest control company what had happened, she was told this was simply part of desert life and advised to continue business as usual, with some extra spraying near doors.
That response gave her no peace of mind.
She told me she felt trapped, like moving out of state and taking a loss on a home she had only recently purchased might be her only option.
After working with us, after sealing was done thoroughly and the why behind everything was clearly explained, she told me something that matters more than any metric:
She was sleeping again.
Her fear had started to ease.
Her home began to feel peaceful.
In her review, she talked about understanding scorpion behavior, learning how they enter homes, and realizing how many small access points even newer homes can have. She didn’t just feel reassured, she felt informed.
That distinction matters.
Reassurance fades.
Understanding expands and lasts.
I’m looking forward to hearing how she feels a year or two from now. I already have a sense of how it will be, because I have stories like this in the thousands.
Why This Work Changed Me Too
People sometimes assume I’ve always been calm about this work. That I’m naturally unbothered by scorpions. The truth is the opposite.
This work became my therapy. And when the work of running a business gets hard, these stories are what keep me going.
By helping thousands of homeowners reduce real risk, through proper sealing, targeted pest management, clear explanation, and listening to their stories, my own fear slowly dissolved.
Not by pretending it didn’t exist.
Not by minimizing it.
But by solving the problem correctly.
I no longer live with the PTSD-like symptoms I once had. I sleep without hyper-alertness. I don’t panic at every shadow or movement. My kids and I now walk barefoot indoors and outdoors. And when I hear fear in a client’s voice, I would never dismiss it, because I recognize it.
That empathy isn’t a marketing angle. It’s a lived experience, one I would have gladly gone without, given the mental toll it took for so long.
Why This Work Still Matters to Me
I’ve never been interested in pest control as an industry. I don’t romanticize it. I don’t enjoy bugs. What I care about is solving problems that genuinely change how people live.
Helping someone feel safe in their own home is not a small thing.
Helping someone sleep again is not a minor win, especially when sleep is one of the most critical times for mental and physical restoration.
Those outcomes don’t always show up on a service ticket. But they are real. And they are the reason I continue doing this work the way we do it: root cause first, structure before chemicals, education alongside action.
When a client says, “I finally feel peaceful in my home,” I know we solved the right problem.
And that, more than anything else, is why I do this work, and how I train our team to find meaning and value in the work they do.
About Georgia Clubb & Seal Out Scorpions®
Georgia Clubb is the founder of Seal Out Scorpions, an Arizona-based firm specializing in Building Performance Sealing® for bark scorpion exclusion and long-term home protection. Seal Out Scorpions integrates applied scorpion biology with building science to protect both occupants and the functional integrity of the home. The company also performs Barrier Integrity Audits and targeted pest management to support structural outcomes. Seal Out Scorpions is currently the only scorpion-focused company in Arizona holding both contractor and pest management licenses and a GoldStar Contractor designation with the Building Performance Institute.
