My closest experience with a snake, and just telling this story still creeps me out (and disgusts me how much of a slob I was in college).
We lived in the houses off 2818 between Villa Maria and F&B Road. It's a somewhat wooded area, and we'd long had issues with rats in the house. The rat issue got so bad that while I was gone on a study abroad, a rat chewed through my dry wall near an air return. I came back with rat crap in my room. My landlord was a joke, and didn't do anything about it. After a late night rat experience or two, I left a rat trap where the hole was just waiting for one to come through, and I caught a couple.
One night I had fallen asleep down stairs and heard the trap go off, but there wasn't the usual scurry sound. Sleepily, I made myself go upstairs to check it, but didn't see the expected dark mass in the trap. I turned on my lamp, and in the trap was a non-moving snake. Its head was under my bed, and I'm an admitted snake novice, but I assumed it was likely dead and probably a rat snake.
Perhaps the smartest thing I've ever done in the middle of the night, I decide to go downstairs to get a broom so I could use the handle to put the trap & snake in a shoe box. Right as I put the snake in the box, it begins to coil and I hear the most terrifying sound I can think of. The snake I caught in a rat trap in my second story bedroom was a freaking rattle snake.
Scared like a school girl, I ran to my roommate's room and woke him for proof. Using a shovel, the broomstick, and the shoe box, we carefully brought it downstairs. We beheaded it (I now know that's a cardinal sin, but it was late, I was scared and didn't know better), and disposed of the body.
I then stayed up the rest of the night picking up the dirty laundry off the floor with the broom stick frightened at what may have been in one of the piles. I then stuffed the hole shut and left a message with the landlord that the hole now needed I be filled immediately.
We lived in the houses off 2818 between Villa Maria and F&B Road. It's a somewhat wooded area, and we'd long had issues with rats in the house. The rat issue got so bad that while I was gone on a study abroad, a rat chewed through my dry wall near an air return. I came back with rat crap in my room. My landlord was a joke, and didn't do anything about it. After a late night rat experience or two, I left a rat trap where the hole was just waiting for one to come through, and I caught a couple.
One night I had fallen asleep down stairs and heard the trap go off, but there wasn't the usual scurry sound. Sleepily, I made myself go upstairs to check it, but didn't see the expected dark mass in the trap. I turned on my lamp, and in the trap was a non-moving snake. Its head was under my bed, and I'm an admitted snake novice, but I assumed it was likely dead and probably a rat snake.
Perhaps the smartest thing I've ever done in the middle of the night, I decide to go downstairs to get a broom so I could use the handle to put the trap & snake in a shoe box. Right as I put the snake in the box, it begins to coil and I hear the most terrifying sound I can think of. The snake I caught in a rat trap in my second story bedroom was a freaking rattle snake.
Scared like a school girl, I ran to my roommate's room and woke him for proof. Using a shovel, the broomstick, and the shoe box, we carefully brought it downstairs. We beheaded it (I now know that's a cardinal sin, but it was late, I was scared and didn't know better), and disposed of the body.
I then stayed up the rest of the night picking up the dirty laundry off the floor with the broom stick frightened at what may have been in one of the piles. I then stuffed the hole shut and left a message with the landlord that the hole now needed I be filled immediately.
