just saw snake in my livingroom

Any colour (of Red, Green, Blue) that snakes can't see? so I could use coloured light and not spook it?
A few hours ago I was walking from my home office to the kitchen for some tea and I noticed something on the carpet. I turned my head to see a snake immediately crawl under the couch (snake maybe 2ft long, dark, not very thick - curtians were drawn and room was dark). Now there's a heatwave here so I was typing in my boxers with the A/C off, no shoes no gloves I didn't figure myself geared up for trapping unknown possibly posionous snake. I backed up a few steps and called my partner to come assist. Unfortunately she spent a bit of time getting boots and gloves on, and though I thought I had the snake quartered, after I got boots and gloves and started pulling apart the room piece by piece, we didn't find it.
I have zero snake experience. After looking all through stuff, again, and again, I did some googling and came across a few ideas for catching it. But I was wondering if there is any part of the spectrum snakes are blind too (my options are Red, Green, Blue emitters, and a yellow filter). Being a flashaholic I thought a coloured light would make waiting in silence hoping the snake moves over a noise trap a less draining experience.

The snake headed straight for the couch infront of an old fire-place cut-out: the solid cement block firewall has a section cut away where previous owners had a fireplace insert. Meaning the wall could have a breach. Given that the snake headed straight for the only place that there could be a breach in the wall, can I hope this was a one-off event and if the wall is properly sealed up, I can expect to not see the snake again?

All comments welcome,
Linger

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OOooohhh ...... I wouldn't sit on that couch for a while ............

Sneaky Snake may be living in it !


And get yourself a Mongoose for a pet .

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How about a gazillion jigawatt laser beam?

I'm sure the CPF'ers who see this post can and will come up with a million more choice comments (though none so good as the Mongoose)... but my advice is:

GET THE H... OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND SLAY THAT BEAST!

(just noticed the time of the OP - are you still alive?)

Dances with Flashlight said:

GET THE H... OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND SLAY THAT BEAST!

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heh, I posted ~3h after I saw it, used present tense in thread title b/c it was too confusing to say 'I saw a snake and then tried to catch it and then looked for it and then read up on them and then had some questions so now I'm posting here'

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Linger ,

Do you have a local Humane Society you can call for assistance and/or references to a snake rounder(upper) ?

Many times they know someone you can call .

Till then I'd hang a hammok from a rafter to sleep in.

I wonder if a CarbonDioxide Fire extinguisher (that emits COLD gas & ice crystals) would kill a snake in it's tracks ? but not damage anything else .

Ha .... (do they make tracks ? )

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I can't figure out where Kingston ON is. The first thing I would do is check if there are poisonous snakes in your area. Chances are it's a Garter Snake, harmless, barely bite, and are easy to shoo away. If it's one of those, don't worry about it, and just poke it with something till it leaves.

The first thing I thought when I saw the title was "hey, me too. it's my pet!"

Also, do not use a fire extinguisher. Chances are, if you have one of today, it's an ABC, which leave a nasty residue everywhere. If it actually is a CO2 model, then maybe, but it' still overkill.

I'll defiantly be calling the humane society tomorrow, thank-you.

So there's no posionous snakes native to the area anymore (Kingston, Ontario is on the north east end of Lake Ontario, at terminus of St. Lawrence river and Rideau Canal), but unfortunately the snake didn't show me its passport so I've no-way of knowing if its an imported 'exotic' pet. I can say that in all the time I've spent in provincial and national parks, as well as my mother's 80acres of boreal forest, I've never come across a snake this large outside of captivity. Which strongly suggests its not native b/c I live in a city and cities aren't known for growing the largest snakes.

re: fire extinguishers: i've got an A/B/C, and I think a B/C, but better is a 6 pk of 'Dust Off' compressed air, inverted can sprays freezing liquid - but don't try that at home.

I use inverted compressed air for no mess insect killing, but I wouldn't go near a snake with that thing, range is way too short and output is too low for anything bigger than a spider.

I've caught garter snakes before, I just grab them right behind the head. Or you can try to push them with a dustpan or something into a bucket.

Argggg .................. I would move out

Can't stand the things

Glad you're calling the humane society. Good choice.

Barring the unlikely chance it's an escaped exotic -- have you asked your neighbors if anyone's lost a pet snake? -- odds are it's a local that was hunting either insects or mice/rats, and it followed one in through the opening you describe.

Most likely you need someone who can go look under the house along the chimney to find the rest of the opening and deal with that -- mice and rats would be using it to get into the house. You want to fix it first so animals can go _out_ but not back it, to avoid having something die inside your walls somewhere, which can be smelly for months.

2 feet long and not very thick -- is a tiny little snake, really. People mostly do not ever see snakes, especially the smaller ones that can just freeze and 'disappear'. I've been camped in big group camps for days or weeks at a time and had snake hunters come through and take two or three from right in camp that nobody had noticed (the snakes were just hiding and waiting for the people to go away!)

Linger ,

I was hoping to to find out how your call to Humane Society went .

Were they able to help you ?

Any further snake news ?

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That's very strange ... If you're livin in the city there's a good chance that it's a "pet snake" that escaped from a terrarium or the owner put it out somewhere. So I would be very careful and asking in the neighborhood is a good option because if someones's missing the snake you can make sure if it is dangerous or not.

Some evening walkers found a pet snake out in the country here. A 20ft+ albino python. When the police came, there were actually two of them. Wow.

Maybe you should call Billy the Exterminator.

Snakes are cold blooded creatures...but that doesn't mean they don't suffer from overheating, the poor thing is probably as troubled as you are not being able to find a decent cool spot outdoors.

I once had a yellow rat snake just under 5 feet in the garage while it was close to 90F outside, so I did what any normal person would do and invited it into the house for a tour, the AC was off but the fan was on, so it was mild 80ish in the house. The first place it wanted to go after going in circles in the kitchen was under the bed of a guest bedroom. After awhile I prodded it out using a static duster I grabbed it and took him back to the garage where it proceeded to exit. I then took my laser thermometer and surveyed the house where the snake visited and found that under the bed the temperature is actually lower than the ambient room temperature by 2-3 degrees assuming all blinds in the room were open. Thanks to that snake I occasionally slept under my bed

Something tells me the fireplace cutout was improperly sealed and the snake either lives there or the draft is cool enough to entice the snake. Other than seeing IR snakes do have a decent sense of smell, but I'm not sure what a bug eating snake would look for in a house.

Illum said:

I'm not sure what a bug eating snake would look for in a house

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Just a wild guess, but maybe it is looking for bugs to eat?

I would probably get one of my buddies to throw a grenade into the room just to make sure we got it. :thumbsup:

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Uhmm..... Does "Raid" make cyanide Bug Bombs ? ~~~~

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