Outdoor Removal

First, you need to find out if that is a venomous or non-venomous snake.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HANDLE ANY SNAKE YOU HAVE NOT PROPERLY IDENTIFIED.

Second, assess your house.

Before you go off on a great snake hunt, make sure that your home is snake-proof. Snakes can fit thru holes the size of a dime. Take time to study the perimeter of your house. Do you have a crawl space that opens outdoors? Is the door well sealed? Do you have a porch? What is under the porch? Look for any potential openings near the ground (cracks in siding, windows, basement doors, etc.)

Third, assess your yard.

To keep snakes from visiting and living in your yard, you must remove potential habitat and food sources.

Remove ALL brush piles (yes we know you just throw sticks and other vegetation in the back corner of the yard). Brush piles provide excellent hiding places for snakes (plus other critters).

Clean up overgrown bushes. Unattended landscape begins to grow wild and get thick. This provides excellent coverage for snakes and other critters.

Assess your compost pile. Do you throw food into it? Is it ground level? Consider placing it on a 6 to 12 inch high platform. Compost piles not only provide hiding places, but can attract potential food that snakes like: mice.

Assess retaining walls especially is they are old. Piles of rock, especially old cinder block retaining walls provide excellent hiding places for snakes. Dig up all that old rock and dispose of it.

Clean up your garbage storage area. Snakes are not attracted to garbage, but are attracted to mice which are attracted to your garbage. Make sure there are no holes in the bottoms of your garbage cans. If you drag your plastic garbage cans to the curb, your cans will wear down over time and create holes. Mice can then easily enter. Keep tight fitting lids on your garbage cans. Always place garbage in a can. Never place garbage bags outside of can. This will not only attract mice but other animals. Buy a garbage can cart. This not only will keep your garbage cans from being accessible from the ground, but will prevent holes forming in your cans from being drug on the ground.

If you have mice in your home, it is likely you have mice outside. Seek to get rid of the mice in your home. Once that is accomplish, follow the steps above to remove potential mouse habitat outdoors.

The steps above will greatly reduce the attractiveness of your yard to snakes. However, if the number of snakes becomes a problem, then finally consider the use of snake traps. Snake traps are an easy and humane to capture and remove snakes.