Home Snake Invasion

It started in the middle of a blizzard.

Temperatures were plummeting to 40 below, six foot snowdrifts made the roads impassable, and our drafty 1908 farm house was frigid. Putting wood in the stove was an hourly chore that kept me running to the basement. On one of my many trips to the basement I discovered a horrible secret our home had been hiding from us.

I had just finished filling the stove with wood. Upon glancing down I saw him. Stretched out across the floor, head raised high, and beady little eyes staring me down. I paused in a moment of disbelief.

Surely, this was a joke that J.R. was playing on me, right?

And then it happened, with a flutter of his tongue in and out of his mouth, he moved. MOVED!
I was face to face with a living, breathing, three foot long snake.



I screamed like a prepubescent teen girl who just ran into Justin Beiber and bolted from the basement. J.R. was no where to be found so like the responsible home owner I am, I geared up for snake battle.

One needs a number of accessories for battle with a snake:

1. Big rubber boots covered in flowers. Check.


2. Thick leather gloves to save you from any bites. Check.


3. A giant garbage can to put the snake into. Check.


4. Guts...... Check?

I headed to the basement, prepared for battle, when wait! Did you hear that? My knight in shining armor had returned from saving the neighbors, and now he could save me!

I met JR in the driveway and started screaming that there was a snake in the basement. Clearly, he thought, being snowed in for five hours was morphing his wife into the female Jack Torrance. He would have to restrain me before anything bad happened. There was simply no way a living snake was in the basement.

Boy was he surprised.

J.R. saved me from playing snake wrangler. He also wore big rubber boots.

After we found our snake a new home with the UW Stout Biology department, we just kept thinking; this doesn't happen in Wisconsin, in the middle of a blizzard. Snakes don't just slither into your house in February. No, snakes slither into your house in the fall before it freezes. Could it be that this snake had been living in our home for months unknown to us?

Looking back, there hadn't been any mice in the house since the fall. In fact, not one mouse had been caught in the traps and there had been no signs of mice in the kitchen. For a 1908 farm house, with a partial rock foundation, not having mice is unheard of.

We chalked the whole experience up to random chance, but for a long time I couldn't walk in the basement without shoes and the site of electrical cords gave me the heebie-jeebies. Winter passed with no more snakes, and gradually I relaxed in the house.

Just when I got comfortable walking around with no shoes, it happened again.

This time we had just returned from a week long family vacation. We entered a home that had the unmistakable smell of something dead. Probably a mouse that fell into a bin in the basement, right? After searching high and low we realized the smell was coming from under the fridge. "Bravely," we rolled the fridge from the wall and discovered the source of the horrible smell.

Another snake. Same size, same type as the one from the winter. It is our belief that the snake was slithering up and down the hole that the plumbing for the ice maker goes through. In his effort to get back down the hole, the snake crawled into the uncovered electrical outlet and electrocuted itself. I was very thankful it didn't burn the house down in the processing of committing snake suicide. I made J.R. clean it up.

Once again, I was back to wearing my shoes in the house and obsessed with looking at the floor around the fridge. Two days hadn't passed when my vigilance paid off. While making breakfast I glanced down and saw it. The unmistakable back inches of a snake, slithering under the fridge.

Same size. Same type.

I've never seen J.R. get out of bed so quickly.

By the time we got our snake armor on and pulled the fridge out, the snake was gone. That was in the spring. We still haven't found that snake.

If you have lost count, that's THREE large snakes. In.our.HOME.

We started doing our research. We believe they are Western Fox Snakes. A female lays between 10-20 eggs in the early spring. Three snakes is bad. Twenty more? No thank you. Begin Operation Bye-Bye Snakes.

We doubled our rodent poison stations.

We searched our foundation for possible entry spots.

And then we went to town with a teeny tiny inspection camera. We drilled holes in our walls and plunged the camera into the guts of our home looking for any signs of snakes. We couldn't find anything. We saw no nest or signs of snake skin, so we were clear, right?

Summer passed with no signs of them. And then yesterday, it happened.

I glanced into the mudroom and realized that the shoe lace I thought I was looking at was moving. I grabbed the mason jar sitting on my counter, found a leather glove, and swiftly scooped the moving shoelace into the jar. (I'm giving myself a gold star for bravery and I would really like to know when J.R. is going to stumble upon a snake. Why is it always ME finding them?



My worst nightmare has come true. Somewhere, in the guts of my house, there are snake eggs and they are hatching. If one snake laid 10-20 eggs, we are looking at 10-20 baby snakes hatching in the house. Remember, we've seen THREE adult snakes. If three snakes laid 10-20 eggs a piece we are looking at 30-60 baby snakes. Doing the math just causes a panic attack.

This is my home. I have a child that spends the entire day playing on the floor. The floor that has snakes slithering over it. I'm suppose to provide a safe space for my child and I'm feeling very helpless in this situation. Even the exterminators have very few answers other than to say "an established den of snakes is the most challenging pest control situation to deal with. They must physically be removed from the den." Great. Sign me up for snake removal duty.

I've been pouring over google for answers in an OCD type manner. I need answers. I need methods to solve the situation. I need new snake wrangling boots.

I need a mongoose!

While I can't find many positives in having snakes in our home, it is great motivation for finishing my degree. When I have a big kid job and a big kid salary, we can afford a NEW home. One with a solid foundation not made from rock, and is more suitable for having small children running around. So Winterm, here I come. I'll be loading up the credits and getting myself closer to a salary that can really provide for my family.

In the mean time, you can just call me the Snake Wrangler.