About 7 years ago, just after I asked my daughter and family to move in to help me, we decided to store some things of theirs in the attic. My son-in-law was in their living room upstairs (by the walk-in short attic door) and Mateo was still a baby in a baby chair. I opened the attic door, saw movement by my feet in the electric main-feed lines. Once my brain processed 'eeeeeeek!!! Snake!!!', you never saw a door slam so fast.
My s-i-l whipped around and asked me what was wrong. I explained that there was a huge snake right by the door. He looked shocked and asked how it could have possibly gotten in there. I explained to him that with old century homes, like this one, there's often older parts under the house that are still dirt-floor crawl spaces, and that it must have tunneled under the dirt and gotten in.
I couldn't bear the thought of a snake in the house, even if it was locked in the attic, so I knew I had better come up with a plan, (especially since, God forbid, neither one of us wanted to actually touch it.) I told him to wait until I got some supplies, and didn't fill him in on what I was doing....not yet. So, I went out to the shop and made a sort of smaller shepherd's hook with a fairly long handle, similar to one I saw Jungle Larry (on TV) use when he was handling snakes.
When I came upstairs, I had my shepherd's hook, and a flip-top hamper. Boy, did his eyes ever bug out when I explained what I planned on doing! I explained that he was going to put the baby up high, safely up and away from the floor...ya know...'just in case'. He was to hold the hamper with the lid open at floor level, and when I got that sucker in there, he was to slam the lid shut and take it immediately outside.
Now, while that all sounded good in theory, I didn't think about the snake moving away from where it was. It was now part way behind something, and had his wrong end sticking out. So, I slammed the door again and said 'You know, you're going to have to hold that hamper up higher, and I'm going to have to try and fling him in there.' Boy, if I thought his eyes bugged out before, they were nothing like the incredulous 'whaddya, crazy?' look I got then!
I must say that I hit the basket first try, and, I'm fairly sure God never heard such fervent prayers from two people over a snake. He prayed that I wouldn't miss, and I prayed that I wouldn't get bit AND I wouldn't miss the basket.
Looking closely at the snake I realized I had never seen one with this particular skin pattern before. It reminded me of a rattler, and was extremely aggressive, chasing me when it should have been running away like any other normal snake. I don't usually kill snakes, I prefer to take them for a ride on a shovel to the edge of the field. This one wasn't so lucky, because there was a little child in the house, and because it was so danged aggressive, I thought that I would have to find out more about the snake. Was it poisonous? If somebody got bit, we'd at least have to know what kind of snake it was in case some kind of antedote was needed. So, we killed it.
The next day a couple of the neighboring farmers stopped by. Being 'old timers' I thought that maybe they could identify it. (Ok, yeah...I get it. I'm an old-timer too, but hey, they got 15 years on me lol) When we work fields, we see all kinds of different snakes and stuff, but not one person in the area had ever seen this particular kind.
Thus began my endless searches on the internet at snake sites, and department of natural resources sites. I found nothing, the only close looking one was from Arizona! For at least 3 to 4 years after that, we found none in the house. BUT, they totally invaded the garage. One day I saw one coming out of a teensy hole that was where the foundation cement met the bottom cement block walls. Yikes! For years we couldn't step foot into the garage without a hoe or a sharp shovel, and if needing something stored in a box, or by the wall...well, we had to tip it first 'just to make sure...' (Did I mention earlier that they were aggressive and chased you?!)
From there I read up on ingredients of Pine Sol, and I hit on what I thought to be a good answer. WalMart was having a sale on Pine Sol that week, so I got a few big bottles of it. I mixed it with water, and with a funnel I poured a gallon down that hole where they were coming out of. Judging from how many babies we caught coming out of there over the past few summers, we all assumed that they had hollowed out a huge den type area under the concrete floor. I took the old orchard sprayer and made a mix for that too, and I sprayed the garage floor with it. I was amazed that by doing something as cheap and simple as that, I didn't see many snakes on the floor afterwards.
I kept that up for about 3 years. It helped a lot, but never totally eradicated them. And each season I'd dump another gallon or two of my Pine Sol mix down any holes I saw one come out of. Every year there seemed less, and less, and we didn't need to open a garage door with hoe in hand.
Forward to this summer...I had a young fellow stop by here to talk about some trees. He saw this dead snake laying there and asked about it. I told him nobody has been able to identify it, so I was going to Fed-Ex it to Columbus dept of Natural Resources hoping that they could. He said he had a friend that was worked in that very dept. and could he take a picture and email him. (Those emailing and camera phones sure can come in handy!) A few days later, the guy emailed him back, and he called me with the findings.
After all that worrying, it turned out to be a variety of milk snake. The Eastern Milk snake, to be exact. When I was doing my searches, I counted out the milk snake because the patterns didn't match or even come close. Then I found out there are more than 25 sub-species of the milk snake, and many, many variations. No wonder I had such trouble finding it.
It is now almost the beginning of September. It's one month past the time when we typically begin with our snake problem. The babies are usually hatched by now, and adult skins have been shed. None of us has seen even one in the garage so far this year. I believe the Pine Sol bath I keep giving their den has really decreased their numbers. I did find one skin shed in the garden today though...and to think I was picking beans from that spot yesterday....ewwwwww!! Time to bring out the orchard sprayer, fill it up once again, abandon the flip-flops, and keep a hoe by each door....you know...'just in case.'
I killed many snakes as a boy in our old mudhouse, but the way you have described the story with a suspense and drama, I got scared even on reading it... You should be fiction writer..my dear Zikki the JoyfulOne.
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