A few weeks ago, while I was at the park with the kids, my wife was putting some stuff away in our basement storage room. When I got home, she pulled me aside and said, “I think there is a snakeskin in our storage room”.
I didn’t believe her, and thought she might have mistaken a loose piece of insulation or something for a snakeskin.
She was right. It was a snakeskin.
It was hanging down the back cinderblock wall from the rafters. So we had to figure out what to do about it. The next day, we called a guy that was recommended by somebody my wife’s mother used to work for. (there will be a test later, so pay attention). 🙂 He came and dug a 5 foot snakeskin out of the rafters in our basement storage room, and then… dug another 4 foot snakeskin out of our rafters. Yep. Two snakeskins. In our house. That means the snakes are in our house at least long enough to shed their skin.
He checks the rafters, and outside the house, doesn’t find a live snake, and says he thinks they might be getting in through the hole for the air conditioner pipe, and recommends that I seal it up during the day (the snakes like to go out in the heat). I asked him if they might be coming inside to find food (mice), and he said it ‘s possible, but they are probably only coming inside to shed that skin. I asked him if they might be “nesting” in the house; making babies. He said it ‘s possible, but they are probably only coming inside to shed that skin. I ask him if they could be on top of the ceiling tiles in my office, which adjoins the storage room, and is relatively open to the rafters. He says, “Oh, sure!” Great.
So we pay the guy, even though there is nothing he can really do, and he brings us back a “snake trap” (which is a triangular cardboard box with some glue inside), and says it might take a week to ten days to catch a snake.
OK.
So I seal up the hole, and go down into my office later that day, and realize I had left my coffee in there. I brought it up to the kitchen to dump it out, and out came a dead mouse. He had drowned in my coffee.
OK.
Then about a week later, after checking the trap twice daily, I found a new snakeskin (yeah, a NEW one) hanging in the same place as the first one. Really? Really!
So the trap isn’t working, the snake(s) is still here, and the family is freaking out.
So I had to do some investigating. I found that the joists of the floor above the basement stick out for the bay window in our kitchen, and are not sealed properly on the bottom, so that’s where the critters are getting in. I need to seal it up. I also need to take down all of the ceiling tiles in my office. I started doing that a week ago, and came across two dead mice. I’m sure I will come across more, but I need to move my desk and other furniture to get to them all.
What a pain.
Then, I was out cleaning the pool yesterday, jumped down next to the pool and what do I see? A baby snake. Yep. There are babies.
Great. Really? Really!