We are in the middle of a remodel and last night I discovered a 3 foot black racer in the kitchen. It quickly crawled into a hole on an interior wall of the house. No sign of it until tonight. It poked its head out and panicked and went back in. We stuffed some foil in the hole so we hopefully will know where it is and I will call a trapper in the morning. Naturally, tomorrow is the day that my appliances are finally going to be delivered. He is hiding in the wall right where my stove will go. It will be crazy busy in the kitchen tomorrow with electric and plumbers before the appliance install. I don’t think I can postpone it without causing an avalanche of problems for so many people.
Anyone have any experience? My son had a pet snake and dear lord, you knew for sure when it pooped. We had a similar snake die outside our house a few years ago and the stink was unbelievable. I have been without a kitchen since August and have been so excited for tomorrow. Now I have a living, breathing stink bomb living in the wall of my new kitchen. Hopefully the trapper will have some good advice but for now, I am just looking for anyone with a similar experience. I am especially freaked by snakes though I know it is harmless.
It needs food, which is - as you must know - good and bad because it’s likely food has been inside the house. I’d check around for anything mice can eat and clean that up to reduce or eliminate the snake’s food supply and send it elsewhere. We had an occasional snake in our basement growing up. Never caught one. They were garter snakes - you know, with the stripes down the back. Less aggressive, as I remember.
I would be concerned about how it got in. I mean did it just come in when a door was left open or has it been living in your house for a while? Also are you sure it really is a black racer and not a rattle snake?
You know the snake is in the wall. You know the outcome if the snake isn’t removed. Why aren’t you rescheduling everything until mr snake has been relocated?
This happened to us. New to us home, also doing renovations. It was horrible. We ended up opening our nearby screen door and in short order the snake crawled out. Not gonna lie, I’m scarred for life from this.
Yikes! Where are you located? I thought the Chicago 'burbs were bad for wildlife - we’ve had raccoons in the attice (they had torn through the roof to enter), mice during our kitchen remodel and coyotes walking down our street, but SNAKES??? I could not handle that!
Good luck. We did get to knoe a great Critter Control company.
When our house was under construction, the stupid dry wallers managed to dry way a cat in the walls! DH heard it while checking on something else finally convinced the contractor that the cat was actually in the walls and hard to take down the dry wall to get it out.
I can handle a cat. I can handle a rat. I can handle mice. But no way could I handle a snake. Everything would stop until I saw, with my own eyes, that the snake had vacated the premises.
ARGH – nothing freaks me out more than an animal in the house - have experienced a squirrel in the chimney, a bat in the family room, a snake in the basement (caught that one, a garter snake). When we bought the house, which had been empty for a while, there were raccoons denning in the unfinished attic! (Had a wildlife service deal with that.) Frankly, the issue is a major driver for my having an interest in eventual condo living – more free of animal invasions.
3acoutsmom, yes, it is fascinating. Turns out, in some European cultures, that barbaric tradition was transformed into a much more humane practice of letting a cat into the new house before any human residents. In some Asian cultures, the new homeowners carry a bag of rice in outstretched arms so the rice comes into the house first - for prosperity.
Anyway, hope the invader will be caught and relocated!
^Yeah, after growing up in Texas, anything non-venomous is OK! Every night before I went to bed, I looked up at my bedroom ceiling, because scorpions liked to hang out there. “Dad!!! Come kill the scorpion, please!!!” Our next-door neighbors killed a big rattlesnake. When my son was a toddler, he got stung by lots of fire ants in my parents’ backyard. I’m glad Maine has none of those creatures!
Well, I called Critter Control first thing this morning. A nice guy came out and cut a bigger hole in the drywall so he could see and there was no snake. There was a hole in the 2x4 for the stove electric cords above where snake was hiding so he probably went up. He would have had to cut into the backsplash, installed yesterday but not yet grouted, to look in that space. We decided to put a glue board down where he had been and if he comes back, we can then remove him. He really couldn’t offer any other solution.
So the stove is going in with a piece of drywall cut out and put back in like a puzzle piece so we can (hopefully) remove the snake/glue board. Not what I envisioned at the end of this whole house renovation. It has been one thing after another. And I’m sure it won’t be the last bump in the road.
I am freaked and grossed out even though I know it is harmless. The doors and windows have been open all the time and I see these snakes in our yard (we are in FL). I might get a couple of those snake traps just to make me feel better.
