Sadly, I Now Know How to Get Snakes Out of My House

“There are mother-loving snakes in the mother-loving ceiling!”

I don’t like snakes. To be clear, I don’t have any bias against oddly elongated animals. There is no animus between the moray eel and I. Eels stay in water, and all I have to do to avoid them is stay out of the water. Snakes though…those rapscallions are land based, and they can sneak into places. Like houses.

My wife and I live in a split-level home. When you get through the front door and into the foyer, you can go up a few stairs to our main living area or down stairs to a more austere level with a family room. Like any good family room on the lower level of a split-level home built in the 1970s, it has a nice fireplace and…a drop ceiling. There is also a half-bath that has seen its fair share of plumbing nightmares, since the toilet is less-than-capable of handling robust “action”.

The drop ceiling is a solid three feet below the flooring above it, and has the standard light fixtures with the clear plastic tiles that allow light to enter the living space. The fixtures nestle between the upper-level flooring and the ceiling.

So it came to pass that my wife and I would sit in the family room watching TV, playing games, plotting the overthrow of the Andorran government, etc — normal stuff, really — most evenings. We had two cats at the time (we still have two cats, just different ones. The cats in this story are dead from old age), and they became increasingly agitated when in the family room. At first we thought they were just being dim because, if we are being honest, they were dim.

The dimmest was actually the brightest

One night, the dimmer of the bunch, Orion, was especially upset and stared at the ceiling. After a few seconds of thought, he let out a guttural “raaaaaawr.” Additional investigation seemed prudent.

I retrieved a five-iron whose shaft had become bent after I whacked a tree with it while golfing. I used my bent rod to tap the ceiling, fully expecting to hear the pitter-patter of mice feet as they scurried to safer locales.

Nope.

Instead, we heard a sound similar to what you hear when you slowly drag your hand over your sofa cushion — a patient slithering noise. Looking at one of the clear light-bearing tiles that was directly over our heads, we saw a serpent that had clearly been sent from the bowels of hell.

A cautious inquiry into the ceiling space confirmed the worst. Cue Samuel L. Jackson. The snake was roughly .42 miles long and as thick as a Honda Pilot. It had clearly recently consumed several large African cats.

Panic. Please recall that I am not fond of this brand of animal. I don’t wish them any particular ill will. I just don’t want to be anywhere near them, and now at least one was LIVING IN MY HOUSE.

Snake mitigation

A hastened review of the structural situation of the space confirmed that the leviathan snake was confined to that part of the house — it could not, absent any sort of fire-breathing abilities (which, at this point, still seemed to be in play) access other areas in our home.

Immediately, we closed off the room, and I added to my arsenal: my slightly bent five iron was employed for long-range justice. A handyman’s hammer — claw-side out — was deployed for short-range justice in case the golf club failed me. (Full disclosure: I had never actually used the hammer to hammer anything. I felt confident, however, that I could figure out how it worked.)

We called a pest-control company for advice and the best they could offer was “just throw up some glue boards and wait for the snake to a) leave or b) get stuck and see what happens”.

See what happens? What the fuck does that mean? How — precisely — do snakes respond to getting stuck to stuff? Do they gain an ability to spit venom-laced fangs at you? Perhaps have their gang members kidnap prominent Hollywood stars? Shouldn’t you have some basic idea of how this is going to play out?

Heroism

So, that’s what we did. Glue boards and patience. I like to fancy myself as being fairly intelligent, so after the first few days of popping my head into the ceiling to see if the snake had been snagged I had abandoned my golf club — the space constrictions made it ineffective in times of crisis — and only brought my hammer with me for these ventures. If any justice needed to be meted out, it would be a close-combat type.

Finally, success. I was home alone, and thought to check on the herpetological situation. I found a snake that probably a little upset over being stuck to a plastic board. Go time.

Step 1: Obtain and consume a glass of Maker’s Mark whiskey

Step 2: Call wife to implore her to arrive ASAP

Step 3: Have wife handle snake situation, and release it back into the wild hundreds of yards from our house

We (read: my wife) were able to get the snake out of our ceiling and into a trash can. Then, we took the can (and the snake) to a pond near our house and hosed it off with cooking oil to ease the adhesion of the glue boards. This allowed a very shiny serpent to return to whatever level of hell it came from.

What’s the point? Consistently investigate the integrity of your home’s foundation and/or chimney and, well, marry someone who is cool with doing shit that you don’t want to touch with a ten-foot clown pole.