Sleeping Snakes

Gentle readers, it has been a harrowing week for Ken and McKenna.  On Monday, I found a snake skin in the laundry room and, upon further inspection, I was fairly certain that there was a snake coiled up in the corner.  Since I couldn't see it very well and had no idea what I was dealing with, I decided to call for help.  Jason the Snake Remover wasn't able to come until Tuesday afternoon, so Kenna and I sequestered ourselves in my bedroom until he could get here and find the snake.

Of course, Tuesday just happened to be a day that I had an open house scheduled and, when I called the realtor to tell her about the snake, she informed me that she had just received a phone call from another agent who wanted to show the house on Tuesday afternoon.  The buyer was only able to see the house on Tuesday and she wanted to come, snake and all.

As I suspected, Jason the Snake Remover arrived just after the realtor and her client, so it was kind of a mad house around here.  While they looked at the house, Jason, Kenna, and I worked on the snake problem.  Based on the snake skin, Jason thought I had a fairly good size snake (maybe a rat snake) traveling between the laundry room and the basement.  He did assure me that the snake was not venomous and he also told me that I didn't have an infestation (thank God!).  Unfortunately, the snake had disappeared, so all we could do was put some traps out in the laundry room, basement, and outside of the laundry room to catch whatever snakes we could.

Snake skin in the yard, where Jason left it (I have no plans to move this sucker):

The plan of attack is to put these traps out, catch whatever is living here, remove it from my property and release it far away, then close the points of entry, and spray snake repellent around the perimeter of the house and the property.  For what we're paying to have this done, we get a three year transferable warranty, so any time there is a snake or snake skin in the house, Jason comes back and takes care of it free of charge. 

The outside trap:

One of the laundry room traps:

I would pay a million dollars to have Jason fix this problem--I do not care how much it costs, I just want the snakes gone!  So, Jason left at about 6:30 and by 6:50/7:00, I heard a rustling noise when I put clothes in the dryer.  We had one.  When I called Jason to tell him, he couldn't believe we had one so fast.  So, he came back this afternoon to move  our laundry room guest to a new abode and while he was here, he checked the other traps.  We had another one in the basement, so he left with a water snake and a milk snake.  He's coming back tomorrow morning to check the traps again.

In other animal news, I saw a doe and three baby deer in the creek the other day--they are a lot cuter than the snakes and they stay far away from the house.

Stay tuned for snake updates--hopefully, these two are the only ones living here and the plan to snake-proof the house will proceed quickly.  I haven't really slept for the past two nights knowing that a snake was in the house and I haven't eaten a full meal either because I don't want to spend too much time in the kitchen.  Hopefully tonight I will get to eat a decent meal and sleep for a solid 8 hours.