I hate Snakes
 

Yesterday when I got home from work I unlocked the side door of the covered in breezeway and walked up to the house door. Something caught my eye right before I moved forward to the back door step, a big fat black and yellow snake laying the length of the step and more:eek:

I panic at the site of snakes, I can't help it. I was home alone and knew it would be a good 20 minutes before M arrived. I didnt want to lose sight of it but I also couldn't move. It started moving and made it's way along the wall and was heading for the laundry room. The only thing I could grab was an umbrella and an empty flower pot, not sure what I was going to do but I made myself move and tried to throw the pot over it and push it in with the brolly:o It didn't work and now it was behind the dryer.
Finally M arrived and he spent an hour hunting my snake, eventually he found it curled up behind the folded up ironing board and he removed it. It wasn't a venomous snake, it was probably as scared of me as I was of it but I just cannot act normally when snakes are involved.

Why am I still so scared? Every year since we have lived here I have seen snakes, either dead or alive, around the outside of the house or in the garage, the flower beds or the patio. This is the closest to actually being inside the house and it has really given me the jitters.

I really really hate snakes and I am so glad no one saw me do my panic jump up and down dance yesterday. It was not a pretty sight:o:thumbdown:

Re: I hate Snakes
 

how are you with trouser snakes? :p

Re: I hate Snakes
 

:o:lol:

Re: I hate Snakes
 

There's nothing to be ashamed of there, I hate snakes too, and I have slowly come to tolerate them enough to be somewhat calm in their presence. I have also invested in two tools to deal with them, though I have used neither yet, at least not for the purpose I bought them.

Firstly I have a 4ft set of rubber coated snake tongs (which are useful for reaching and grabbing other things, and I severely doubt I would ever use with a venomous snake), and secondly, I have a 20 gauge single shot shotgun, which I can shoot at 6-8ft range and hit, with certainty, a broom handle sized object lying on the ground, which I bought for dealing with copperheads. ... I also have a kit of chemicals and instructions for tanning a snake skin! :)

Re: I hate Snakes
 

You're not alone. We have garter snakes in our yard and though I know they are not poisonous, they still make me brick it. It's the way they move

I wait till it's really cold before I cut back shrubs and stuff because I've found them lurking in them when it's still warm. There's a reason the snake is the villain in the Adam and Eve story.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

But the problem is if these tools are not at hand then it wont work because my biggest fear is the snake hiding up somewhere while I am finding something to destroy it with.

As much as I fear them I made M show it to me after he found it. I had to have proof that it was gone:thumbdown:

Re: I hate Snakes
 

When we first lived in Singapore (85 miles north of the Equator) the first place we resided in was a ground floor maisonette in a small condominium. One day I nearly passed out when a cobra started slithering its way past the laundry area and into the kitchen :eek:

Fortunately there were security guards at the condo entrance so I went running down to them and they took it away (there was a small area of jungle nearby).

However - what they did do was to put a line of sulphur across the entrance to our doors. Apparently snakes can't stand the smell of sulphur and won't cross it (I've heard that ants won't go across a chalk mark either). It might be a good idea to see if you can get hold of some sulphur, no idea where from but maybe an old-fashioned neighbourhood hardware shop or online? I remember we used to use it in chemistry lessons when I was at school.

The snake incident freaked me out enough that when our 2 year rental lease was up we moved to the third floor of another condo lol! :D

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/sna...-home-recipe#b

http://www.stretcher.com/stories/02/02feb11a.cfm




Some hardware stores like Home Depot, Lowes or Ace (and Amazon.com) sell a product called 'SnakeAway' which contains sulphur.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

I have a snake as a pet :p

I have that fear about spiders, however.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

So does Nutek - too many legs!

And so do I. :o

Re: I hate Snakes
 

:eek::eek::eek: You did better than me! We'd be moving if I saw a snake in or around my house!

Re: I hate Snakes
 

We had a baby rattlesnake (a Western Diamondback to be precise) swimming around in our brand-new swimming pool one morning. The babies are even more dangerous than the adults apparently. My sister came over to initiate my husband into the fine art of beheading rattlesnakes, a useful skill for a Brit to have in Texas.

Keep in mind that non-venomous snakes are very useful and if you found one, it was probably on the trail of a mouse or rat. Rattlesnakes, however, do not mix well with gardeners, kids or border collies, so they sign their own death warrant in our garden...

Re: I hate Snakes
 

I am wary of snakes, but I like them. Here's a nice little 5-foot diamondback I came across a couple months ago...

Re: I hate Snakes
 

My favourite snake isn't in the US - but has the best name in the world...

.... Boomslang!

Re: I hate Snakes
 

Snakes on a plane!


... someone had to say it :p

I hate snakes too. And wasps. And mosquitos. And spiders. And slugs. Pretty much anything that moves ...

Re: I hate Snakes
 

I hate snakes and spiders, and I have a lovely cat that thought this past summer was a good time to show me her latest catches. I am sitting at the computer chatting on skype when I heard my cat making this strange sound. I look down and she deposited a +- 2ft snake by my feet. (neighbour told me it was just the garden variety) I think I went from a sitting position to hovering over the desk with a final lunge to the door! She thought I was not appreciating it enough so she dragged the thing into the passage way. It then decided it had enough so started slithering towards my bedroom. Threw a shoe at the head which missed but encourage said snake to turn around and slither towards me. I bolted out the way and it then was heading for the lounge. I was able to whack it a few times with a broom and it fortunately did the job. Got it out and heaved in the bin. I spent the rest of the day like this.:scaredhair: This kind of stuff seems to happen when my beloved is travelling for work. Murphy's law.:unsure:

Re: I hate Snakes
 

A good old South African nasty. Had a problem with them near our home in die ou Transvaal.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

Sheesh. Snakes don't hunt people. They're quiet, unobtrusive, eat vermin, don't make a mess and generally remove themselves if you leave them alone. Why people hate them and yet tolerate dogs is beyond me.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

That's a fantastic picture! I'm cautious and respectful towards them, and love seeing them on the trails. I had a close encounter with a rattlesnake earlier this year on the trail, which I found strangely exciting.

I have an irrational response to roaches, unfortunately. They utterly freak me out! Something strange happens behind my ears ... .

Re: I hate Snakes
 

That's the spot where they like to burrow in to your brain and lay their eggs.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

All snakes are useful, and no reason to just go and kill a rattle snake just because its in your yard, there are plenty of other options.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

We have plenty of snakes around the back yard, they keep the rat population down and they keep rabbits away from my vegetable garden. I have yet to see a venomous snake round here, but I know they're around.

When walking along a trail along a beach a couple of years back, we came across a coachwhip that must have been 9ft in length - an absolute monster. My wife ran as fast as her legs could carry her.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

:eek::scaredhair:

Re: I hate Snakes
 

Why? They aren't venomous...

Re: I hate Snakes
 

:rofl:

Re: I hate Snakes
 

I know! That's what I told her, well, shouted to her as she went over the horizon.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

You need to ditch the boonies! We've lived here 11 years and only once seen a live snake near the house...that was a little 12" grass snake that I thought was dead, and picked up with a stick to show the kids....i dropped the stick pretty quick when it's tail started curling round to hang on! I just left it be, but it must have been on its last legs (no pun intended) as a few days later it was still there, stiff as a board. That said, pretty close neighbors have recurring problems with cotton mouths, and another one regularly gets snakes in the pool, but (touch wood) we haven't had that joy yet!

Re: I hate Snakes
 

..spoken like someone who lives in British Columbia...

Re: I hate Snakes
 

Not fond of snakes myself and have had a few encounters. Bats are the things that freak me out. Lived in an A-frame in Pennsylvania some years back and it turned out that the second floor walls (the walls in an A-frame are the angled roof) were infested with bats. Hundreds of them. :sick: The noise when they would fly out at night was incredible. I was on a ladder at the front of the house doing some work when one flew out of the roof and I fell off the ladder, with no injuries, fortunately.

Years before that I was at a friends house with another buddy, his wife was out, and we were playing cards when a bat came flying around the table. What followed would have been suitable for a Three Stooges movie. One guy wearing his volunteer fireman hat and coat, another with a blanket wrapped around him and a towel on his head and me with a kitchen pot on my head (the old wives tale of bats in your hair thing) chasing a bat around the apartment with a fishing net, a baseball ball and a golf club. Somewhere in the middle of all of this his wife comes home and practically collapses in a fit of laughter at the three brave men. :lol: The bat finally flew out the window, likely with a good story to tell the other bats. :D I've always wished that I had a video of that. Would be at the top of the list on Youtube.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

That sounds hysterical! :rofl:

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I neglected to mention that we managed to break the ceiling light and a vase during the melee. :lol: That did not please his wife.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

In Scottsdale, you simply call the fire department and they show up quickly and will remove the rattlesnake for you. My friend did this recently and was amazed at how nonchalant the fireman was when he picked up the snake! They take them out to the open spaces and release them.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

Catch and release is the best way. They do serve a purpose in nature, and humans did invade their turf.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

Yep. Ten years in NM here and never found a reason to kill a rattler.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

Thank you, sir. I had long ago taken a snake handling class from my employer (one of the few useful classes offered, despite having nothing to do with my actual work) that told me how close I could get to this snake - close enough for a macro lens in this case.

Here are a few other non-venomous cases. The green racer (Tesuque Creek) [Edit: looks like this may be more commonly known as a Smooth Green Snake] is something fairly unusual. They like forested land right next to permanently flowing water - not a particularly common condition in NM. Green racers are super fast - this photo is far from perfect but as good as I have gotten. Second: A young bull snake (Bandelier National Monument). Third: Some kind of garter or something (Rio Grande Gorge Bridge). The cicada skins are entirely coincidental.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

If you're a fan of snakes (and who isn't!), I recommend a visit to the Singapore Zoo. It's actually the most amazing zoo I've ever been to and has incredible exhibits. 20 years ago, I saw the following things there:

- a reptile show held on a stage who's front was a transparent tank of water. Three handlers came out holding a reticulated python I would conservatively say was 15 feet long. They dumped it into the tank of water and it started swimming from one end to the other. This was a fairly incredible sight. After about ten minutes, it decided it was bored and came out of the tank and headed straight for the audience. There was much screaming from the audience and a good deal of comical scrambling and falling over each other by the staff. Snakey was safely recaptured and taken off stage.

- most zoos have open bird enclosures: you walk through an airlock and the birds are flapping around freely inside a giant room. The Singapore Zoo has a... snake enclosure! You go in there and giant snakes are just dangling off of trees a couple of feet from your head! It's deeelightful!

Lastly, I recommend checking out the "viperkeeper" channel on youtube. A guy who raises the most dangerous species of snakes in the world for anti-venom and zoo purposes. He's a little crazy.

Re: I hate Snakes
 

:frown:

Ok people, enough.

Please start you own "I love Snakes" thread, because everytime I look there are pictures of creatures I have a great fear of and it's giving me the heebie jeebies:thumbdown:

I am sure if you don't have this fear it is hard to understand and I was hoping I was getting over it until last weeks encounter. Now I am freaked out again..:(

Re: I hate Snakes
 

It's an irrational fear, it does you good to look at them :p

Re: I hate Snakes
 

:sneaky:

:ban:

Re: I hate Snakes
 

You remember the insect threads, yeah?

Re: I hate Snakes
 

:rolleyes:

I'm scared of spiders, but I wouldn't complain about it :p