TIMES RECORD NEWS (Wichita Falls, Texas) 03 January 09 Loose snake puts marriage at risk (Joe Brown)

I could tell he had recognized me as he walked up to me 14 years ago, but I didn’t know him.

His hand was outstretched in either friendship or need. He quickly explained, “I’ve got a problem!”

Then he continued, “I’ve got to get some help, or I’ll have to sell my house and move, and my wife will leave me and go to her mother’s.”

The look on his face was serious, so naturally I responded with an equally serious expression. But I allowed my eyes to ask a silent, “What the hell are you talking about?”

He explained, “We had painters over at our house this week and they left the front door open. A snake slithered inside, and as far as I know, he’s still in there.”

Note the gender of the snake was a he, so I guess all dangerous snakes are male.

He added, “If my wife ever sees that snake inside our house, she’ll be gone and will never again come back.”

The man put it as simply as he could. He was desperate to get that snake out dead or alive and quickly. But how?

“I once heard you talking on television about using a wet burlap bag to kill a snake in your farm house. Does that work?”

Finally everything began to make sense. I told him how difficult it is to rid a house or a barn of a resident snake if you can’t find it or see it. A steel trap is great, but it can also be deadly to a small cat or dog or even a crawling infant.

Humans have a fear or hatred of snakes that might go all the way back to Adam and Eve, but I think this is because snakes are cold-blooded animals. If they were warm-blooded like a puppy or kitten, we’d enjoy picking them up and petting them.

But this man needed help more than philosophy, so I started with the gunny sack method that only works in hot weather. I explained that a snake warms itself in the sun when it is cool, just as they search for a cool spot when it is hot.

My farm house is hot in the summer, so any snake dwelling in the walls seeks a spot to cool off. Thus I would wet a burlap sack with well water and lay it on the concrete floor hoping the snake would slip under the sack to gain relief from the heat. Then every hour or so I’d walk by with a sharp hoe and beat the sack with slashing blows.

I never killed a snake under there, but I tore the devil out of that feed bag.

I told the man my snake continued to shed its skin in my bathroom were he could hang the peeling skin and drag it off, leaving it on the floor.

My inquiring hunter only shuddered at this bit of information.

Farm folks could tell their city cousins that rat and snake protection is why they have so many cats and dogs running loose. Besides, in the country you learn to live with snakes.

I told the man about a few tricks such as buying “sticky” boards that are supposed to hold a small snake if it crawls over it, but bigger snakes pull loose just as they do a large rat trap. Some folks take a mouse on the end of a copper wire and stake it out to be swallowed by the serpent, which is then dragged outside and killed like a fish on a line.

Some exterminators have small cone-shaped traps — much like the three-section fish traps — that a snake will crawl into and can’t find the small opening to get back out. But I never used these.

I finally told him many exterminators called out to rid a house of a snake simply search the floor cabinets one by one, and the same for pantries and clothes closets.

Trying to add a bit of humor to his useless talk with me, I asked if his wife had ever gone into the bathroom in her bare feet and stepped on the snake in the dark.

From the look on his face, he’d never even thought of this. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have brought it up.
TX Press: Loose snake puts marriage at risk

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