Why Do Snakes End Up In Unusual Places? Experts Reveal Reasons

Snakes are often showing up in some unusual and unexpected places in the United States of late. Though people expect to see a snake slithering in the backyard of the home, they are terrified upon finding them in the bedroom, kitchen or sometimes in their toilet. Not just homes, snakes are making surprise appearances inside cars, residential pools and school campuses.

To get a clearer picture as to why snakes end up in such unusual places, International Business Times spoke to two snake catchers who have years of experience in dealing with reptiles.

"Smaller species often get brought inside the home by a cat, larger species end up inside by accident through cat/dog doors and/or flyscreen holes due to temperature. It may be too hot outside so they need to cool off inside on tiles. They also sneak in through doors and windows that are left open for longer than needed. Some species of snakes can slither up the pipework to your toilet/sink/shower, this often happens by accident too, they either were looking for water or they got into a disagreement with a cat and bolted into the sewage," Joshua Castle, a snake catcher from Brisbane, Australia, told IBT.

Ange Broadstock, with Snake Catchers Adelaide, said, "Snakes are timid creatures and like to be left to do their own thing and certainly don't like to be interfered with by humans. All venomous snakes are usually timid and scared of us, there isn't really a lot of difference between the species, you may find some like the red bellied black snake for instance is more of a gentle snake compared to say the brown snakes as they are more defensive."

Castle said different snake species behave differently. "For example, the common tree snake (green tree snake) climb through your aircon, get bought in by a cat, will fit under the slightest gap on your door or garage, they can even climb up brick walls to the second floor to use a hole in your fly screen. In the wild these snakes will hang out of a tree and sway back and forth pretending to be a tree branch. An eastern brown or a red belly black are not good climbers and generally get in through your doors and garages being left open, or holes on fly screens," the snake catcher said.

Broadstock doesn't believe the behavior of snakes is affected by the weather.

"It's generally not related to climate. The only thing about climate is that on hot days snakes will seek shelter and come out of a night time when it's cooler, and that's also when they make they're way inside houses, to escape the heat. Snakes like to travel along straight lines, so they will follow the perimeter of the house around and they may feel coolness come from under the door from an air conditioner and seek out coolness inside houses. They are often found in laundries, kitchens, bathrooms as they seek coolness on floor tiles," Broadstock told IBT.

Though there are not too many ways to avoid such encounters, one can avoid getting bitten by the reptile by just leaving them alone and not touching or disturbing it.