WOW, that must have been scary!

Emily Dickenson described seeing an unexpected snake as 'Zero at the bone': yes, exactly.

But it would have made you a youtube star if someone had a camera!

Sadly, the best spot for my new home has more rattlers than anywhere else on the ranch, so I got hold of a local snake wrangler who's helping me locate the den.

I couldn't eradicate them all if I wanted, but I AM going to shift the local reptile population in favor of the non-venomous competitors of the rattlesnakes.

If you have a dog, get him vaccinated against rattlesnake bite: its said to be quite effective. Not available for us humans, but neither are the vaccines against giardia, west nile, etc., or the flea drops that helps keep mosquitos away from my bull terrier.

And you might want to consider some of this stuff:

Here is a link that might be useful: click

Aw, they don't eat much!

Keep a flat shovel in your trunk and when you get moved in, keep it by your back door or in the garage.

Here's where the last rattlesnake I ran across ended up. ;)

CB--I haven't found any snakes, but one night at dark thirty, I was by myself over at the house. When I walked into the newly sheet rocked master bedroom, a GIANT raccoon ran out of the master bath and I almost had a heart attack. Later we found his tracks all over the upstairs and downstairs. I told my DH it was too bad we didn't have the security system hooked up cause we had already had invaders. I have to admit I'd rather have raccoons than rattlesnakes!
Susan

any snake gives me the heebee jeebees-I couldnt have gone back!

allison-oh my! You are braver than me!

My mom has seen 2 snakes (black) in her FINISHED house in the last 3 yrs! That house has been combed for places where they could get in. Builder finally decided they were scooting up the stone chimney (after birds it seems on the chimney screen) and he went up there to patch some holes in the screen last week. Last one was just a couple of weeks ago. She steps out of her bath into the MBR hall and sees what she thinks is a black belt-it moved! This was 11pm at nite and she is a widow-no children around. So she throws a towel on it, calls a neighbor who comes and gets it. I have no idea how she sleeps there.

My dear grandma/grandpa cleared the land they built into a farm in the 1930s. It is some of the richest land around because it was swamp in a former life. She has a total of how many water moccasins they killed-in the hundreds. We call her Annie Oakley.

OMG! The snakes in the house ain't funny, but Susan, the giant raccoon..........!!! Your post was too funny to me! I jst had to laugh @ that one! But I quickly stopped laughing 'cause ain't no telling what I'm gonna run across @ 'dark thirty' when I'm checking out our site all by myself! Scary!

Before the windows and doors were finally in place so we could close things up, we had to ask (repeatly) the workmen to please, please, please throw their food away before they left at night-- we found racoon poo everywhere.

HATE snakes of any variety... my sympathies~

We co-exist with rattlers around our home. Dogs have both been bitten, one of them twice, and the pre-treatment shots probably saved both of them. Every dog in rattler country should get this shot. We also keep a supply of Benadryl around to help them with the swelling (also works for yellowjacket bites).

I've killed maybe 20 or so since we've been here (7 years), all near the house or garage. If they are further out we re-locate them. We've also brought in king snakes, which are very aggressive and will drive rattlers out. Rattlers, fortunately, are not aggressive at all, and will try to avoid you if they can. We see far fewer than we used to because of the kings.

Main rule for anyone visiting: never ever, ever, EVER put your hand where you can't see it.

We have raccoons here, of course, but not nearly as aggressive as those we had in San Francisco. My neighbor back there was playing piano in the middle of the day. She kept hearing weird noises in the house, but kept playing until she heard something right behind her. She turned and found two huge, gray 'coons staring at her, like they were enjoying the recital. Talk about brazen.

Yep. I almost stepped on a copperhead about a month ago on our place and last week, our electrician calls me to make sure my husband is coming out to the house with me. I asked why and he says because there is a 6 ft long black snake about 10 ft off your back porch. Thank you.

In certain parts of our fair city, if you value your bottom, you watch when you use the wc.

I have learned to just leave the black snakes alone. I see them around the barn frequently. Rarely in NC will a poisonous snake be in the vicinity of a black snake. So the black snake is definitely the lesser of two evils. As a teenager, I antagonized a black snake until it bit me. No problem at all. Black snakes avoid people when they can. I had a friend in Florida, a sort of hermit, who deliberately put black snakes in his house to repel the poisonous snakes and to deal with rats and mice. He treasured the work they did.

They say a snake will always look for a path through an obstruction rather than around it. When you build a home in their path, for several years, you may have this problem. I know we did when I was growing up and built in the country. We had many snakes on the side walks, in front of doors etc. After about 5 years, it subsided but not after stepping on several.

When living in florida I once got a service call to look at a new AC condensing unit. The customer said it was cooling fine but the outside unit was making a strange buzzing sound.

I knelt down, unscrewed the cover and started lifting it out of the way when i discovered a huge rattlesnake curled up around the compressor. I snapped the cover back in place and we called animal control. In about a half hour a man from animal control showed up and got the snake out with a long reachpole with finger grippers on the end. When he finally got it all under control they measured it and determined that it was a 9' eastern diamondback. He then dropped it into a bag to be transported to a release site.

Just before he left he says, "It's a good thing you didn't kill it. Rattlesnakes are protected in Florida. It would have been a $500 fine if you got caught killing it."

They aren't protected here. I killed many copperheads at our last house. Non-poisonous snakes can stay.

We have qiute a few copperheads around our house. I take a hoe to them.

I had a buddy in Corpus Christi, Texas who bragged to me once,,"No snake is ever gonna hurt me, Might cause me to hurt myself getting out of the way..but the snake won't get me...LOL"

ok i give up. what is "dark thirty"?

kateskouros--dark thirty is somewhere between dusk and total darkness. It's that last few minutes when you can barely see to do something outside. Country folk like me use that term a lot!
Susan

Wow OP, you have WAY more guts than me. I would've hightailed it out of there so fast you could see skid marks lol!!

Worthy, your link brought back a scary memory for me too on the same issue. Remember the "Flood of the Century" that hit Winnipeg in '97? I was living in a basement apartment at the time that sucker was coming. I kept my cool having our city taken over by military, I kept my cool helping DH (BF at the time) sandbagging all their houses to 10' heights, I even kept my cool when pictures of the flood hitting Grand Forks, ND and literally obliterating it hit the news - knowing this was coming our way.

I TOTALLY lost my cool, it was quite simply my breaking point, when they issued an "advisory" that water levels were too high and rats were coming out of the sewers rather than drown.

Up until that point, my home was my "getaway" from all the madness. It was "safe" and would not be underwater if the floodway caved. I am sooooooooo terrified of rats!!!

My parents wanted me to come home (Sask.), but I actually moved to DH's place - which was ON the river's edge lol - rather than deal with rats biting my butt or getting in my apartment. DH graciously duct-taped my toilet lid down and covered all drains so they couldn't get in. But with an unusable toilet, I preferred the risk of living at DH's rather than RATS. *shudder*

What's really funny? DH only recently told me my risk of butt biting was just as big at his place lol.

I HATE RATS (and snakes, and bugs, and pretty much anything reptillian). I'll stick with cats & dogs thank you very much lol.

Dark-thirty generally occurs about 4 hours after beer-thirty.

We were bothered with water moccasins until alligators moved into the lake and ate them all. Be careful what you wish for!

oh my gosh. and to think I was creeped out by the spider high on my wall last night!

love the dark-thirty and beer-thirty explanations.

Then there is oh-God-hundred - that generally occurs one to three hours before the sun shows its face in the morning.

Yes, I was out at the job site twice last week when it was approaching Oh-dark-thirty, and I heard "something" in the rafters, I assume it was a bird. Then we found a mess in the guest room above the garage, and I started thinking it may have been an animal. I don't like to go there at that time, but they had just put my front stairs in and I wanted to see them! It is a little spooky, even though the neighbors aren't too far away!

By the way, Oh-dark-thirty is the opposite time of day as the A$$ crack of dawn, which is when my children feel it is appropriate to get up:-/

Amy

Ok, For those who have been depraved the opportunity to live and work in Texas....

Whenever it is approaching quitting time on a job site someone will holler to the boss asking what time it is? To which the boss will reply,,,"It's beer thirty" which means its time to spool up and head to the house/bar for a cold one.

Dark-thirty is when it gets dark.

Hello we found a 2ft long rattle snake in the kitchen. Does anyone know how long one can live inside jus trying to figure out how long he may have been in the house I have a 2yr old and Im nervous about him being in the house and Im wondering if more are in the house...Please help!!!