Oh, wait. That seems to be what I write about almost as much as renovating now.
I was walking through the lounge room yesterday when I noticed something moving on the top of the TV cabinet. I don't need to tell you what it was, I'm sure.
So began a battle between trying not to lose sight of the snake, lest it disappear somewhere further into the house, trying to convince Lucinda to stay put, trying to find a patch of reception to load up the number of a snake catcher and trying to use the home phone to call one.
In the end, my neighbour appeared in the driveway with a squeal of rubber and came up stairs to catch it.
It was a tree snake (non-venomous) and it wasn't a huge surprise. We've got a large tree overhanging our verandah and we'd already discussed how easy it would be for them to drop down onto the roof from that.
But it gave me one hell of a fright.
I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling a bit over it all today. I am craving the comforts of our old house in the 'burbs and its lack of snakes. I do not want to raise my daughter like this, with snakes dropping into our lounge room to say hello. We will cut the tree back, but there's a hundred other more pressing jobs to do first.
I knew there'd be hard patches in this journey and this is definitely one of them. I'm snaked out and we've only been here three months.
But, onward and upward. We just have to keep going forward. That is, after all, life.
Oh you poor thing. We have no snake catching person so have to sort situations ourselves. My sister-in-law who lives in the southwest rang the snake catcher and he told her just to grab a shovel and whack it if she was really worried as he couldn't get there for hours! Not a great help.
ReplyDeleteHang in there. Living in renovations is horrible especially with young kids. I will never do it again (never say never but you know what I mean). Will all be worth it in the end. Just trudge on for a while!
Have you tried getting a snake repeller thingy-majig, they are about $50 from produce places, I hear they work...
ReplyDeleteI've heard they're a waste of money.... people seem to be split. There's a snake catcher on the Gold Coast who posts videos of all the snakes he finds rapped around them or right next to them, almost like the pulsations attract them.
DeleteEdwina I put in snake repellers at the start of this summer (after 4 snakes in 2 days - all venomous) and have not had a single one around the house since. Could easily be coincidence. Interestingly some friends who own a station in the Gascoyne put them around their homestead and went from 2-3 snakes a week in the houseyard to 2 a summer.
DeleteI must admit when I first looked out ours I thought I had been ripped off and just bought some very expensive solar lights - having said that, anecdotally they seem to be doing something...!
Hate snakes so much I was willing to risk being ripped off!!
I'm with you and I live in surburbia in Brisbane. My kids were getting into the car to go to school and my 6 year old daughter came in and said that there was a snake on the side of the car to which I said, "don't be ridiculous" and she said "it's true Mummy come and look". I just imagined a large python clinging to the side of the car and thought that couldn't be. Anyway sure enough I walked around to the other side of the car and there was a greenish tree snake on the outside of her window (my heart was racing a million miles and hour) and looking at the time ie 8am in the morning when the men of the neighbourhood would already have left for work I had to act fast. Also my garage has lots of shelves and boxes and I did not want this snake on top of my car or somewhere else in the garage so I got my daughter to go and get the camera and my son to go and get the large outdoor broom. Took the photo quickly and then in one swoop got the broom onto the snake and pushed it away from the car onto the driveway..........seriously I was so scared but had no choice but to get it off the car so we could go to school. So I know how you feel and if it was in my house I would be freaking out. Maybe you'll have to spend the extra money (I know it's hard) to get screens on all the windows so that you and your little ones are safe inside......YUK I don't like snakes either.
ReplyDeleteSorry to bother you with this but it's Autumn and they will be looking for somewhere warm to hang out over the colder months. My silly cat brought me a present yesterday, a red-belly black snake infant about 22" long and as thick as my finger. Fortunately she left it on the footpath. DH wanted to kill it but I scooped it up with the shovel, as the only damage was a couple of cuts from where the cat had carried it in in her mouth, and hoicked it down the paddock in the long weeds. I explained to him I'd much rather a red-belly than a brown or tiger snake, both of which are more poisonous and have shorter tempers. I've discovered that red-bellies like their peace and quiet and are more inclined to slip off quietly out of human site than put up a fight like a brown or tiger. They will attack and drive off or kill other types of snakes that intrude on their territory though. Anyway, the cat chose to relocate it and the snake wasn't too happy about it so I wasn't going to kill it for that. BTW, I've lived here 15 years and DH has been here 40 and no one has ever suffered a snake bite on the 200 acres of property. Calm, caution and common sense is what a lot of snake bite victims don't have. Keep the grass short around the house, remove anything they can hide under (sheets of tin) and remove overhanging trees and bushy trees too near the house.
ReplyDeleteThanks! We're working on it. Hopefully if we work hard through winter the place will be more under control and snake-repelling by next season. A lot of people have recommended we get a cat but from teh sounds of stories we hear, that's only going to increase the frequency of seeing them as cats bring them half-dead inside all the time!
DeleteGoodness - and there back in your childhood home there is a wooden snake on the TV cabinet. Hope that they stay away in future - and glad it was not a brown snake - still I would not like any real snake in the house.
ReplyDeleteoh honey...that must have been horrible...the bright side (bloody bright sides!!!)is that you held it together and got the thing outa there. its ok to fall apart after the fact!...hooray for neighbours to the rescue. tree snakes love to eat frogs...lotsa rain...lotsa frogs....a visiting tree snake or two. Winter is coming, hang in there! x
ReplyDeleteThanks Allison. C'mon Winter!
DeleteDid you never see them where you lived before? Mum and Dad live in suburbia on the estern shore of hobart and a few years ago they had numerous snakes in the backyard - all no doubt looking for water. Dad's birds must have looked tasty too. Actually a few weeks ago a friend of mine's dog caught and baby snake in her backyard in Mt Stuart. Nice.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are doing so much and working so hard, you are bound to have patches where you wish you were back where you were. But it will be worth it in the end x
Never saw one in seven years in our last place. Never saw a large huntsman either, I think it was a particularly pest-repelling house. Except the time we had a colony of rats move in.
DeleteWe cut our teeth on a few of those harmless green tree snakes too. It freaked us out majorly when we saw them scaling the windows. When we stumbled on our first brown snake, we freaked too. I'd rather be too cautious than too cocky! Yet in none of those encounters have the snakes acted aggressively towards us. The green tree snakes tended to disappear the instant they saw you coming, and the brown snakes were generally more interested in catching mice and copulating near our back verandah, lol.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, and I forgot to mention the carpet snake we took on single handed, when it decided to try and swallow one of our chicks late at night. You should have seen us - it was hysterical. Husband pulled the snake out of the chicken tractor and luckily it had the sense to drop the chick. Then he tried guiding it's head towards ME, holding the empty chicken feed bag to relocated it elsewhere. I chickened out, lol, and you wouldn't believe how easy it was for my husband to simply slip it's head into the bag himself. It wasn't aggressive. It was actually quite beautiful. But at the time, our hearts were racing!!
You will definitely have those days where you'll long for the ease of suburbia again. But given enough time and exposure, you'll learn something which suburbia could never teach you - self reliance. That's not to mean growing all your own food or building a dwelling with mud and bare hands, it just means you learn you are capable of more than you thought you could do before. I found living in the sticks really does challenge all your boundaries, all those neat markers we place between what we expect and what actually is reality for most living creatures around us.
You saw a snake - the snake saw an opportunity to find protection. You will learn to see their patterns as normal, and while you'll still get a fright when encountering one (which I think is a healthy trait to have) it won't fill you with as much dread as it once did. I still empathize with the process of learning however!
Oh you poor thing. I grew up on a property in far north NSW and we had a lot of snakes around too. The only time we ever had one inside was when my Dad, who was the unofficial snake catcher (and relocater) of the region, brought one home in a pillowcase. He was meaning to relocate it after he had had lunch or something, but much to my Mum's horror, had brought it inside in the meantime. Of course it escaped his knotted bag, and we didn't know where it was, just that it was INSIDE THE HOUSE! I can't remember what it was - not a Tiger or Brown one - something skinny and dark green... We had to find it before a bunch of visitors were arriving. It was chaos and Mum was mad (three little kids home at the time!) All ended up OK, I think it was behind the couch. Otherwise we only ever had pythons in the garage - when we pulled the garage door down we had to watch that a python didn't fall on us.
ReplyDeleteFunny memories, but not so funny at the time.
Good luck!
I live in the suburbs of Brisbane and we found a green tree snake on the bed in our guest room recently! So it could happen in the city too :)
ReplyDeleteSeveral friends in Brissy have said they've seen them recently. So much rain, they must be super active.
DeleteHoly shit! I would have grabbed my child and ran screaming from the house. Okay so I am a wuss when it comes to stuff like that. I keep complaining about the ants and cockroaches that have come inside to get out of the rain. My bitch seems trivial now.
ReplyDelete