Living in a rural desert area in the southwest US

[LordyLordy]

Originally Posted by AmericnGrl

In Guam these nasty brown snakes come up thru the plumbing including the toilet. And snakes can climb, lemmee tell you. My son was telling me he was helping a friend with a roofing job on a great high and tall barn and he found a shedded snake skin up there that was humongous. So they can come up the plumbing or down the chimney/stand-pipe. They had WAYS of getting in, trust me.

There are many, many rattlers in the desert SW. It is their habitat. While they can and may end up in your home, it is a pretty rare occurrence - usually food is abundant and they really don't want to be with you in the same space, by nature they avoid people.

Brown recluse bites (can be nasty) and scorpion stings (not deadly unless you are allergic) are far more common and prevalent. We live in the Hill Country of Texas (not desert SW but you can get to the desert within 5-6 hrs of driving) and have captured at least 20 brown recluses in our own home in the last year. The previous house we lived in did not have as many recluses but we found a scorpion almost daily on the bottom floor. Many times people will build a home right on top of a nest...

These are realities of living in the area. In Big Bend there are four types of rattlers from what I know. One of them is the commonly found Western Diamond rattlesnake whose bite can be deadly but you have plenty of opportunity to get transported to the hospital. The other one is the Mojave whose neurotoxin is a bit more nasty but still survivable if you are given the antivenin within the next hour or so - if you are somewhere in the middle of the desert hiking, you would obviously end up in a tight spot - better have a personal locator beacon on you and hope to be medivacced. If you were in your rural and remote home, you better have a phone that has reception and call 911 immediately - this goes for any bite. Rattlesnake envenomations can be anything from "dry bite" to potent, full of venom wet bite. Obviously the key is to OPEN YOUR EYES and not blindly skip over rocks, put your legs everywhere without looking etc. If you have a shed or a structure that is not commonly used, make sure you LOOK first. Tall boots and jeans are a must when out going into the wilderness anyways. So on and so on - just some common sense.

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by texdav

Of course; the worse is to likely as you get old. My friend sold his when he started having heart problems and that is only a second home.Have another who lived in beautiful mountains of Colorado who moved for same reasons. Your likely to just die before a helicopter can get there from any distance or in snow storms in second case.yu ready enevr wanted to be alone in such places because of just accidents .

I'm a 63 year-old single woman and I go alone to the backcountry of SW Colorado's mountains all the time. The day I'm too scared to get in my truck and head out for the freedom of empty places is the day I'll buy my plot in the graveyard. Meanwhile, I'm lapping up every last drop life out here in God's Country can provide. In all my time in the SW, I've encountered rattlers twice and a hatch of scorpions once. There's also a tarantula migration that happens out here in SW Colorado/NW New Mexico in October - very interesting (and pretty harmless) critters.

If you're scared of the country, you don't belong here. Stay back East and lay on your couch watching Westerns instead.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by wycoyote

You hit on a pretty significant issue in states that have a monsoonal summer flow as Arizona, New Mexico and Texas do.

When the storms roll in and humidity rises the swamp cooler loses much of its efficacy.

There's also the dust to consider because some windows must be partly open to vent the air flow out. It can be frustrating picking what you think is the "right side" of the house and getting a storm that thinks otherwise.

Regarding dust, this is a simple matter. Never open the windows on the southwestern side of the house. That's where the spring and summer winds always come from.

Then too, a large swamp cooler places a positive pressure inside the house, so any air flowing through an open window when one is running is always exiting.

[cowbirdcat]

holy crap!..is that picture enlarged??

[dusky_beauty]

The OP mentioned northern AZ, and I just wanted to take a sec to mention that northern AZ (williams, Flagstaff, Ash Fork etc) wasn't really desert so much as pine woods with cactus. It's pretty, but I wouldn't choose to live there as you can't have a well. The ground water is locked under rock you can't drill through. You have to truck in all of your water, and it's the most non sustainable system ever.

Strangely enough, the water situation is much better off west of Phoenix in the actual desert from Wickenburg down to Buckeye and Tonopah. There's a nice aqua fur to be tapped for wells that's cold and delicious.

As has been stated, good habits will help make your place less attractive to snakes as long as you're somewhere reasonably normal (not near a breeding ground or something) Keep brush clear so there's no places to hide, control your rodent population so there's no food source to attract them or keep them. I have a good farm guardian dog that barks at snakes when she sees them and draws attention to the danger as she tries to scare them away from her property. (Great Pyrenees/Aussie shepherd cross.) I want guinea fowl. I hear they hunt and eat snakes as do peafowl. They really do a number on outdoor bugs and spiders too.

Finally, to address your concern about emergency medical issues- My husband is a paramedic. If an ambulance depot can't reach your home in less than 15 minutes, they generally send a helicopter in life threatening emergency, especially if the injury is bad enough they need a hospital with special amenities like a trauma center, burn unit, or pediatric hospital.

There's essentially nowhere you can't be rescued.