Honey, there is a snake under the bed!
Is what my Whatsapp message to Steven read the other day. I had just walked into our bedroom and saw a tail disappear under the bed. You can imagine my concern. It is one thing finding a snake in your garden, but a whole different thing when you find one in your home. Much to my relief, the ‘snake’ turned out to be a skink. Maybe it was a sign of things to come though. Because just two days later, the lady that helps me around the house found not one, but two snakes in our bedroom. But let me tell you what happened with the skink first….
After seeing a scaly tail slide under our bed, I went to fetch the snake tongs I got from The African Snakebite Institute. I got on my hands and knees, tongs at the ready and looked under the bed. Nothing. Oh dear. I looked behind the curtains, under our night stands and finally pulled the bed away from the wall. A tiny head appeared on top of the headboard.
A head that did not look like a snake… oooohhhhh it is a skink!!! A big one, I have to say, but a bit of a relief. Then I wondered: How on earth does one catch a skink?? I sent my husband, who was on his way home from writing exams in Pretoria, another message.
“Any idea how to get this cutie out of our bed?” I wrote. “Oh heck,” was his answer.” They are so quick!” And then my ranger husband with almost 20 years of service with SANParks had the following brilliant solution:
“Ok, put a bit of water with lots of salt in it. He will drink it and get very thirsty. When he is very thirsty, he will come to the kitchen for more water. Then you just ask him to drink from the tap outside. Then close the door quickly!”
Thanks my lovie that is some solid advice right there. Haha! Instead, I went to go fetch my trusted broom and a Tupperwar. I must have spent the following half an hour trying to convince the skink to get into the plastic container, but as Steven said: They really are fast as lighting. So after three rounds of moving bed, side tables, chairs and vanities I gave up. Skink 1 – Linda: 0.
So when Lolita phoned me two days later to tell me she found a snake in our bedroom, I assumed she also had a run-in with our bedroom ‘guest’. She sounded very worried over the phone. I asked her: does it have any legs? No ma’m, she said! It is a snake!
I was in town for some errands, so I told Lolita to close the bedroom door and that I would be right back. “Please don’t kill it!!” I asked her before I hung up the phone. But the thought of being in the same house as a snake was too much for poor Lolita. When I got home she was outside, shaking like a leaf. “There were two! One under the bed and one under the washing basket!” She told me. Unfortunately she had already killed them, before I had a chance to catch them and release them back outside.
A yellow-bellied sand snake and a spotted bush snake. Not dangerous to humans at all, so it really wasn’t necessary to kill them, but I understand why Lolita did what she did. I have no idea why they came into the house…They might have been looking for that skink too! Like I said in the beginning, it is one thing to see snakes outside in our garden. It is another thing when they are inside your home. I just hope that next time we have a snake in the house, I am the one to find it, so I can put it outside where it belongs.
Oh and if you were wondering what happened to the skink? I have no idea! I have not seen it again. Maybe he got out on his own, maybe a snake at him. Or, I might just find him in my sock drawer one day!
Credit of the Featured image at the top of this blog goes to www.africansnakebiteinstitute.com.
Its lucky that you are so philosophical about all the wildlife that insists on living and feeding on, in ,under and around your house and garden Linda! Loved Steve’s response to your message for help . . . .
Aah – so sorry that two harmless snakes had to perish because of one human’s fear. However, I do understand that some people are really, really scared of snakes. The aren’t all black mambas though! I had a spotted bush snake after a ghekko in my garden on Saturday. I disturbed its hunt, and when the ghekko shot off up the wall, did I get the beady eye look from the snake – “You just chased away my breakfassssst!!” Sorry bushy. There will be another one, I’m sure. At least this was in the garden and not in my house! I have to say that the ghekko was a lot more sturdy than the snake, so I don’t know how it would have eaten it if it had managed to catch it.