Snake Exclusion (North America)

If you are troubled by snakes in your neighborhood, around your home, or in your yard, don't despair. You don't have to live in fear that a snake might show up at your door, in your garage or shed, in your yard, or in your trees, to scare you witless, gobble up your favorite songbirds, bite your dog, or harm your children. Below are a number of important steps you can take to reduce the risk that snakes will take a shine to your yard, your home, your trees, and your neighborhood. If these steps are followed carefully, you should be able to live in a reasonably snake-free environment:

(1). Before doing anything else, survey your home, yard, and neighborhood for potential snake, mouse, or rat harborage areas. Remember, any place that is hospitable for mice, rats, toads, frogs, and geckoes, is also highly attractive to snakes, because rodents and anurans are the favorite prey of most snakes, including our common rat snakes, hog-nosed snakes, and garter snakes, but also including venomous pit vipers such as copperheads, cottonmouths, and rattlesnakes. Venomous coral snakes, too, favor places where they can find abundant, ready-made shelter. The most likely places where snakes and their prey congregate involve

          (A) woodpiles,

          (B) rock piles,

          (C) Piles of leaves, tree limbs, or weeds,  

          (D) stacks of debris, masonry or firewood,

          (E) uncut weeds or grasses, both in the yard, and bordering the yard within 10 feet of the yard perimeter,

          (F) thick and impenetrable shrubbery, and

          (G) the undersides of structures such as mobile homes, and homes and/or garages on pier & beam foundations, sheds, dog houses, and the like.

For harborage areas that are not under your control, find out who is responsible for them and request, preferably in writing, that they be corrected or removed. If such harborage areas are on property belonging to a governmental entity, consider taking photographs to support your complaint, and submit them along with your written request that corrective action be taken. Do not be dismayed if the governmental entity you deal with is less than cooperative. It seems more typical today than in any time in the recent past (I am in my late 60's, and I've never seen things this bad, ever) that various governments tend to think that they are not responsible for the health hazards that exist on the properties under their control. If you experience a lack of cooperation, document the conditions well, with photographs and text, and take your case to the next level. You may have to become something of an irritating gadfly to get things done, but eventually you will prevail. I speak from experience on this.

(2). For all snake, mouse, or rat harborage areas under your direct control, it is wise to begin dealing with them by taking precautionary steps to prepare them for correction or removal: these include (a) treating the harborage areas with a commercial mouse & rat bait, carefully following the directions on the label for the bait that you use, and waiting a suitable period of time to insure no mice or rats remain in those areas (there are no baits for toads and anurans, but removal of harborage will suffice to make them move elsewhere); and (b) treating the harborage areas with a snake repellent, carefully following the directions supplied by the manufacturer for the snake repellent of your choice, then waiting a suitable period of time to reduce the risk that snakes remain in those areas.

After the above precautionary steps have been carried out:

(3). Remove the harborage areas completely, or pay someone else to have the harborage areas removed for you. BUT REMEMBER THIS FIRST: Snake harborage areas may continue to harbor snakes, even after you have removed their prey and treated the area with snake repellent, as they remain attractive as places of congregation. When contracting with someone to remove harborage areas for you, make sure they have the competence to know what they are doing and are willing and able to accept the risks involved. When attempting to remove woodpiles, rock piles, piles of debris, etc., yourself, take appropriate precautions, including but not limited to, (a) wearing heavy, leather, specially constructed snake-proof boots on your feet, (b) following safe practices such as never disturbing a portion of harborage with a hand or foot; use a long-handled pry-tool instead, and (c) taking the time to survey underneath all the harborage you are removing, using a bright flashlight or other bright light source, for possible snakes that may be hiding there.

Suggestion: If possible, conduct harborage removal during the winter months, when outside temperatures are low and cold-blooded reptiles are more likely to be hibernating underground. Also, conduct harborage removal during daylight hours, on a sunny day, when you will have good visibility and will be more likely to observe a snake that is being sheltered beneath a portion of harborage you are in the process of moving.  

(4). Once all the harborage areas under your control have been removed,

          (A) regularly treat your home, garage, sheds, and storage areas thereafter with mouse and rat bait to insure rodents will not take up residence in such areas in the future,

          (B) regularly treat the perimeters of your yard, home, sheds, and shrubbery with a snake repellent, replenishing those treatments in accordance with the manufacturer's directions for the snake repellent of your choice,

          (C) keep the grass in your yard, and on the border of your yard within 10 feet of your yard's perimeter, cut to less than 2 inches at all times, and

          (D) frequently check for and correct all new rodent and snake harborage areas that pop up over time, keeping in mind that such areas tend to arise unbidden as the natural accompaniment of ordinary life, and should be found and remedied as quickly as possible in order to keep the risk of snake encounters as low as possible. 

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