An Augusta family discovered dozens of snakes inside their home over the weekend.
Trish Wilcher posted on Facebook about finding 17 baby snakes and the mother snake in a bedroom at their home. Georgia DNR Biologist Daniel Sollenberger said it’s not uncommon for snakes to get into homes.
“Being small, means they can get in small cracks at times and sometimes wind up in houses and garages,” he said. “Snakes can get into some small spaces but they are not magicians.”
Sollenberger offers some tips to make sure snakes don’t get into your home and how to handle them, if they get in anyway:
Seal doors
Be sure exterior doors have good weather stripping, Sollenberger said.
“Sealing up, replacing the weather stripping around your doors,” he said. “If you can see any daylight at all, you probably need to replace that weather stripping.”
He said people should check under the sink or vanity in their bathroom to make sure the hole for the pipes and drains is sealed. Snakes are known to come through such open spaces.
Spotting a snake
The only way people will know whether there is a snake in their house is by seeing it, Sollenberger said. Snakes don’t really have an odor and don’t really make sounds so it would be impossible to smell them or hear them.
There is a myth out there that snakes smell like cucumbers but unfortunately they don’t smell that good,” Sollenberger said. “They usually don’t smell like anything unless you pick one up and smell it a lot, you might smell a musky, really nasty smell.”
People might see snake skin sheddings around the house if a snake has been there for a while.
It is common to see snakes in a home if there is a mice problem. The mice will attract rat snakes, who would actually help out, if you can tolerate them, he said.
“When someone calls and says they have a snake in their house, I almost always predict that it’s going to be a rat snake, that’s the most common snake that gets in people’s houses,” Sollenberger said.
“If you are bitten by a snake, get yourself to the nearest healthcare facility. Don’t try to catch the snake, don’t try to bring it in so we can identify it,” Lopez said.
Lopez said some patients try to catch the snake to identify it and are bitten a second time. He said they don’t need to identify the snake, they simply can observe the patient and find a course of action.
In 2020, 124 victims out of the 561 required an antidote, while only 31 patients in 2021 have required one.
