Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

Let me just preface this with the true fact that I HATE spiders. The only thing that might freak me out more are snakes. I didn’t know that Italy had scorpions, and there are many things I will learn about these creatures in the months and years to come. I still hate them today, but at least I feel like I know where to expect them and to be prepared.

I found my first scorpion in the spring of 2022 in the shed, which I guess shouldn’t be a surprise. I quickly learned to open the shed doors, walk away and give them time to get back into the dark and hiding. They aren’t big, but if you have ever seen a scorpioin, you will know that they are creepy looking. I prefer not to see them if I can help it. They also change size and shape once they are angry.

Back in January after we took ownership of the house, we began building our Ikea beds and dressers. This meant that we had lots of boxes that we needed to get rid of. In the winter we burned several of them in the burn pile still remaining in the front yard, but we couldn’t get rid of all of them. We piled the remaining boxes up along the bushes near the shed, thinking they would be protected from the wind.

There were a few boxes of shelves and a dresser left to be built that remained in the living room, I would build them when I returned in the spring. What I didn’t expect was that scorpions would find their way inside the boxes and make themselves at home. Let me tell you, it was quite the nasty surprise when I opened one of the boxes and saw a small black creature moving around. EEK!

These remaining boxes were added to the older pile over by the shed once the furniture was built. I still don’t have garbage so I will need to figure out how to dispose of this stuff properly.

One of my English neighbors suggested that I cut the boxes up and make a neat pile, secured with rope or twine and dropped at the community garbage area in town. Great suggestion! However, what I didn’t expect was to find that the outside boxes were inhabited with more scorpions. Enough already. I soon learned that these little buggers love cardboard, wicker and dark spaces, like under rocks or wood. Good to know.

On the last night of our stay in May 2022, we ran into a complication. Jessica and I were locking up the front door and a key piece of it completely fell apart and into Jessica’s hand. WHAT?! We leave at 6am the next morning, how are we going to lock up the house?

Pause, take a sip of wine, deep breath. OK. We can use the bolt lock to secure the front door when we leave in the morning. The dining room door will also be locked with a key and bolt locked from the inside. The kitchen door will need to be locked with the key only, no bolt lock. That way I can leave out of that door in the morning, lock it with the key and call it good.

One problem. The glass door that leads outside opens in and not out. Again, WHAT?! Who put this together? OK, no problem, I can simply take it off of the frame and leave it in the boiler room until my next return. Una problema…A big, fat, juicy scorpion was hanging out near where I needed to unscrew the hinges. SERIOUSLY!!!

At this point, it’s close to 10:30pm, I still have some packing to do, but this takes precedence. I sprayed the scorpion with some lavender oil and then some bug spray. I then swooshed it down and outside with a small hand broom. Once outside, I swept it away from the door, hoping it would find its way somewhere away from the door. 4am wake-up time is going to feel really awful tomorrow!!!

Meanwhile, each year we find scorpions here and there but nothing like in 2022. Maybe it was worse then because the house was vacant for a while. We learned to check our beds before settling in to make sure they weren’t tucked down near where your feet go. I also tap the heels of my shoe on the ground everytime before putting them on to make sure nothing is inside.

Periodically I find scorpions inside but less and less. My motto is, if they are outside in their own habitat, I need to help them along their way but not kill them. Once they enter my domain, all bets are off!

Shoe kill…

Hammer kill!

At this point, I feel like I need to tell you about our Termiti Hell in another post.

A presto!