slitheries

[out_of_the_ordinary]

      I didn't see a smilie screaming, so I couldn't use that.   I went down to the basement and there it was!!   I ran and screamed and thankfully DH was already on his way home.  I'm still shaking.  Prayed and prayed DH would find it and he did it and killed it.  (Praise the Lord!)   I'm still shaking.  I don't even do good with seeing cartoon pictures of them.     It wasn't very big, about the length of my hand....but one of THOSE in my HOUSE!!!      15 years here and we've never even seen them in the yard.  We've had mice in the past.   We've had a bunch of spiders this year and the end of summer we've been getting big crickets in the basement.     Anyone have experience with this?    I don't want to do an internet search 'cause then there are pictures.      I sent DH to get those sticky trap things.   I'm praying there's not more.   When there's one and it's baby sized, does that mean there are generally more?     DH thinks it's no big deal    .

 

Yes, I am a giant chicken about those.   Be gentle with me.

Edited September 16, 2019 by out_of_the_ordinary

[Ambergris]

Oh, my.  Your heart will stop pounding soon.

[Jeepers]

Oh lawsy girl. I always said I'd have to move if I ever saw one in the house. I'm being gentle. I'm right there with you! I'm the same way about pictures of fish. Can't handle them either. 

 

Seems like a lot of creepy crawlies are trying to get in before winter. Shudder. I don't like any of them. Be sure to check all of the places they could come in and plug them up. Maybe one just sneaked in while a door was open.  Let's go with that thought. 

[Mt_Rider]

1 hour ago, Jeepers said:

Let's go with that thought

Yeah, what she said!!!

 

I'm right with ya!  I'd easily take all of my rat-finks instead of any slitheries.  No no no no no!!!!  And to your dh FINDING THE THING so you know it's disposed of....definitively!

 

MtRider   

[Mt_Rider]

    .......will this guy do? 

[out_of_the_ordinary]

1 hour ago, Mt_Rider said:

    .......will this guy do? 

That's more like it.  

 

1 hour ago, Mt_Rider said:

Yeah, what she said!!!

 

I'm right with ya!  I'd easily take all of my rat-finks instead of any slitheries.  No no no no no!!!!  And to your dh FINDING THE THING so you know it's disposed of....definitively!

 

MtRider   

We've been getting those wolf spiders--and they are aggressive (those scare me-- but not like slitheries) and the annoying LOUD crickets.   I won't complain about either of those anymore!

 

2 hours ago, Jeepers said:

Oh lawsy girl. I always said I'd have to move if I ever saw one in the house. I'm being gentle. I'm right there with you! I'm the same way about pictures of fish. Can't handle them either. 

 

Seems like a lot of creepy crawlies are trying to get in before winter. Shudder. I don't like any of them. Be sure to check all of the places they could come in and plug them up. Maybe one just sneaked in while a door was open.  Let's go with that thought. 

We do need to move.   It's an ongoing source of stress here.  For many reasons.    I'll have the post about it sometime in the Psst section.  But, DH's work has gotten slow.   People have been laid off.   DH doesn't have a problem with it, but I don't think, financially, that we should move right now.    If he was the next one laid off....  However, now with what I saw today....

 

2 hours ago, Ambergris said:

Oh, my.  Your heart will stop pounding soon.

I hope so!

 

Thank you all.   I'm going to eventually have to go back down there to do laundry.     I don't want to.    

[Jeepers]

Carry a big stick down there with you. If you see another one take that stick and fling it (the snake) against the wall. I did that with a rake one year when I was outside raking leaves. A little one came out and I had Depends ® moment. I caught it in the tines of the rake and flung way out in the street. I never saw any traces of it so it must have made it someplace safe. Probably came slithering back in my yard. Probably about 8 ft. long now hiding I my attic just waiting to drop down on me with a tiny rake between its fangs. Crimony, now I'm scared. 

 

Thanks a lot OOTO.  

[out_of_the_ordinary]

13 hours ago, Jeepers said:

Carry a big stick down there with you. If you see another one take that stick and fling it (the snake) against the wall. I did that with a rake one year when I was outside raking leaves. A little one came out and I had Depends ® moment. I caught it in the tines of the rake and flung way out in the street. I never saw any traces of it so it must have made it someplace safe. Probably came slithering back in my yard. Probably about 8 ft. long now hiding I my attic just waiting to drop down on me with a tiny rake between its fangs. Crimony, now I'm scared. 

 

Thanks a lot OOTO.  

    

 

I'm going to want shovels and garden hoes stragetically placed.   When I was little, I clearly remember my mom chopping them up in the yard with either shovels or garden hoes.   DH still seems to think this isn't a big deal at all. 

[Mt_Rider]

21 hours ago, Jeepers said:

I had Depends ® moment.

 

 

OOTO.....was the snake identified?  I mean....a snake in the house IS A SNAKE IN THE HOUSE!  But it would be good to know if it's a mouse-eating garter snake or something actually worthy of our    Yanno? 

 

By the way.....I'd go for the garden hoe.  Much longer reach than up close with a shovel.   Or just shoot it.   

 

Honestly, I don't kill them unless they won't get out of my pathways outside.  I can't stand having the jitters over them.  I have never gotten an I.D.  on our type, but not rattlers.  Don't have them up here.

 

MtRider  .....lovely topic, eh?    

[out_of_the_ordinary]

DH id'ed it.  I forget the variety, but non poisonous.   Glue traps in the basement so far are empty.   There are 5 or 6 kinds in Pennsylvania that are poisonous.   A few years back, they spent over $1 million reintroducing one kind because they said it was an endangered species.       They're "protected".   Due to another kind that's also "endangered" , some construction projects are required to be first checked for them to make sure nothing would disturb their habitat if they were in that location.      

 

We don't know how it could have gotten in.  DH wonders if it could have fallen the crickets in. DH checked the foundation over the weekend (the basement crickets are loud and were annoying him) and didn't see anything.   I'm  still completely freaked out....if ONE got in....    Since it was a baby one, I asked DH if it could have been hatched in the basement.  He said we'd have dozens of them.      We're going through a rough patch as it is, so I don't know if he said it to be a jerk or....  

It was bedtime.  Not much sleep for me that night.   I haven't been sleeping as it is due to allergies.

 

I haven't gone down to the basement yet.   I'm a chicken and I'm okay with that.

 

We're still have temps in the 80s.   I want some cold!  Hard frosts will take care of some of this.  Winter is my favorite season--no snakes, no bugs, no humidity, no pollen.    I've had a rough allergy year.  It's peaking the worst for me right now with all that goldenrod.  For over a week,  I know it's really bad because my body is getting super, super sensitive to everything else (like the tiniest bit of my skin getting a little too warm and I'm getting rashes and itchyness) and have completeley lost my appetitite and have trouble sleeping.   Despite my limited diet, I'm a good eater, so not wanting a bite of anything at all is weird.   Doc says it happens to me when my system gets too overwhelmed with allergic reactions.   

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeepers]

Yeah, a rake handle or broom handle flinger. Shudder.

 

One year an elderly neighbor asked me how I felt about snakes. I told him. He asked if I'd help him kill one he had pinned down beside his house. His wife was too afraid. I said, "Sure". Gulp. False bravado. I held the snake down with the shovel while he chopped with the hoe. I didn't look. Don't know why he didn't just push down on the shovel and "half" the monster. Maybe he just wanted someone close by in case he fainted. 

 

He thanked me profusely. I came in and took a shower. 

 

If it hatched in your basement, you would find the shell. It was probably a full grown one but just a small variety. 

 

Hope you feel better soon with your allergies and all that goes along with them. 

[Mt_Rider]

"Sure"?  You told him "Sure", Jeepers?       Nah uh!      OTOH, I might watch to make SURE he got that thing taken care of so it wouldn't be ending up in MY territory!   That might be a good motivation!!  

 

NON-poisonous ...very good.  Still slithers tho...    "DOZENS".....  YEEE-ICK!  Seriously!  Not funny.  ......might be true tho:  "several"....not dozens.

 

Sorry about your 'rough patch'.  Hope things can calm down and you both draw closely together again.   

 

MtRider ......gonna look under the bed before I step down   

[Jeepers]

I didn't want to look. I was being all cool and nonchalant but inside my heart and brain was going a mile a minute. When we first moved here I used to accidentally run over them with the lawn mower. Made a mess. I didn't want to see that again. He was hacking away at it like a lumber jack cutting down his first tree. I haven't seen any more for years. I must have got them all. My reputation proceeds me in the snakedome hood. 

[Annarchy]

Oh my.  I was going to post a picture..... then you started this thread....  Last week I was sitting in the shade next to the hens and they began to get irritated. At first, I didn’t think much of it, until a black movement, in the yard by my garden, caught my attention.  It was a 3-4 foot king snake. It comes through our yard, occasionally, and gets water from the bird dishes.  Their diet includes rattle snakes, sooooo.... I let it slither on to the water, after taking a couple of pics.  After it was out of sight, the girls settled down.  

 

 

[Jeepers]

Oh my Annarchy. I would have been up out of there so fast. It would have been every chicken for herself. 

[out_of_the_ordinary]

Our basment is unfinished.   We have lots of things stored down there.   We don't have a shed or anything, so there's alot of the "outdoor" stuff down there.  Buckets, boxes, boards, tools, ect.   We also have pallets with our 2-3 tons of bagged pellets (for the pellet stove) down there.   Millions of places to hide.   (And I shudder some more!)     Still avoiding doing laundry.   I'm going to have to do a load later today...after DH is home, though, for sure.   

 

Ann, thank you for not posting a picture in this thead.  

 

 

 

[Mt_Rider]

Yeah....I don't want to actually LOOK at one of those super long ones either.  However, even I would probably let any predator of rattlesnakes go on it's way....if it doesn't begin to this it's my pet.  {shudder} 

 

The Enemy of My Enemy is My "Friend".....  well, uneasy alliance at best. 

 

MtRider  ....pics....ah