Snake Alert

I was giving my niece a hard time because a 7" snake got into her house and she was hysterical. Only about an hour later I’m in the yard, nearly step on a four-footer, and see it flee into a flowerbed then into a weep hole of our brick house. [redacted} I recognized the snake - it lives in the crack between the A/C slab and the house slab - and hope it will return home. The weird thing is that when I moved into the house in 1997, I got some window screen, cut it into strips, and jammed the strips into the weep holes to prevent critters from coming in that way. Back then I was thinking more of scorpions though – not snakes! Fortunately, it’s a non-poisonous one. Here’s hoping it exits on its own soon…

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When I was a grad student, we used steel wool in any pipe (be it pipes for cables, or pipes for drainage). It was an observatory, and we had rodents and snakes (rattlers in that area).

Most snakes are harmless to people. Depending where you live, it was probably a garter snake or blue racer or some other constrictor. A few areas (like ours) have to watch for rattlers, coral snakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths.

The constrictors are actually your friends. They’ll deal with creatures you would regard as pests, while posing no threat to you.

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…then into a weep hole of our brick house.

Fortunately, it’s a non-poisonous one.

Consider that anything it finds to eat in there is probably something else you would prefer not to have in the house. :sunglasses:

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BG Here’s hoping it exits on its own soon…

Let a small chicken egg come to ambient temperature …(you might put it in warm water for 15 minutes)…and put the egg outside the weep hole

Set up your snake-eating-egg cam and live stream it?

:+1::slightly_smiling_face:
ralph

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https://youtu.be/1uSoAXKVtk4

Classic. Here a homeowner deliberately feeds a snake into a hole in the wall and look what comes running out…

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It wasn’t going in there after anything; it was just fleeing the scene from me having almost step on it. I’m just going to wait it out and see if it appears on its own. Common rat snake so generally good to have around; I’d just prefer not to have it as even a temporary lodger in the walls of our home.

I was out in the yard and noticed that the snake was poking his nose out and looking around. He wasn’t out much – about 3" or so – but enough so that the wind was continually blowing his head back and forth and is repeatedly shaking his head “no”.

Brainstorm hit: put an Arlo camera on him just in case he decides to exit. Less than an hour later he was out and he quickly fled back to his regular “home”, the gap between the a/c slab and the house slab. [Rat snakes are great for killing rodents & small varmints so I was pretty set on not killing him.]

I quickly jammed some steel wool into the weep hole as a temporary measure, but will get some screen material, cut it into pieces and jam it in there. Will follow with a perimeter check for other weep holes. I guess his journey was an adventure for both of us.

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Wow your reaction is the exact opposite of what I would do… No way I can remain calm knowing there’s a snake “renting” a piece of the nearby wall… Nope - double nope lol