# Snake in the basement



## jkrodger (Jul 10, 2007)

Alright, my husband and I replaced the old basement door, it's good and sealed now. We went through and did some tuckpointing outside and sealed up all cracks and holes down in the basement. The problem is that there are 2 built-in storage units (complete with dry-wall and subflooring) in the corner of the basement. These have been there for about 15 years and I'm sure we've got some cracks and holes there, but we're not ready to demo them yet. We've also sprayed the interior and exterior perimeter of the house with a home defense pesticide in preparation for the colder weather. Last week it got pretty chilly and we began seeing, for the first time since the new door was installed, some more dead crickets in the basement. I assumed either our cat was hunting them, or they were dying from contact with the pesticide (which says is safe around pets once it's dry). This weekend we found a baby garden snake, which was probably who was killing (but not eating?) the crickets. Any ideas on how to prevent more from getting in? Without demo-ing those storage units? Someone said he may have even come up from the drain but I didn't think that was likely. Thoughts?

Oh, this is pretty much what the little guy looked like. Don't worry, we didn't kill him, we just took him outside and let him go at a near-by park in some thick grass.


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## KUIPORNG (Jan 11, 2006)

Trust us, we wouldn't blame you if you kill these guys... you are such a brave person... if it were us... neither my wife nor myself will dare to go down to the basement at all.... it just too scarely.....


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## Mike Swearingen (Mar 15, 2005)

I don't think that the snake is killing the crickets without eating them. They must be just dying from some pesticide.
Any where that mice can tunnel in, snakes can tunnel in after them.
We live on the waterfront of a farm. I keep D-Con out in our enclosed crawlspace during cold weather season (I just put it out the other day for the fall). It kills the mice in the crawlspace, which keeps the snake population down, although I usually have both under there during the winter. The D-Con keeps the mice out of our house "upstairs". 
I only kill the poisonous ones, unless my wife sees it, and then I have to zap it. If she sees a snake on TV, she will have a nightmare about it. She is_ really_ afraid of them.
They don't bother me as long as I can see them. 
MIke


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## send_it_all (Apr 30, 2007)

The bad news is that if you have one garden snake in your house, it probably means that there is a huge nest of them somewhere.... They reproduce in massive numbers and once they settle into a place, they like to spread out and get into all the hidden nooks and crannys...














Im just kidding.


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## KUIPORNG (Jan 11, 2006)

I have problem people showing sympathy to these busters... after all, they are the one representing devil in genusis....just kill them...


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## jkrodger (Jul 10, 2007)

send it all - NOT FUNNY. Now I'm worried...is that true?  We haven't seen any evidence of mice or snakes until we saw this little guy. He had somehow gotten himself mostly trapped until a plastic shelving unit. We saw the tail moving and thought it was a mouse. When we moved it, it was just him. There's sub-flooring for those 2 storage unit, so I guess there could be things living under there. I'm scared to use DeCon b/c our cats often wander into the basement while I'm doing laundry.

Mike - we live in the city and the nearest park is a couple blocks away, but even at that, there's no water source there. Do you still think we'll see the kind of snake/mouse activity you see?


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