My wife is petrified of snakes. Very petrified. We just moved recently, and our new place borders on a nice wooded area. We have lots of wildlife coming through the backyard, such as deer, rabbits, foxes, and oh yes…snakes.
We noticed a group of about 4 slithering through the front hedges one day, and I thought my wife was going to pass out. She literally froze in her tracks, and had trouble breathing.
She now wants to kill all snakes in the area to ease her concerns. I told her that the snakes were not poisonous, and would actually benefit us by keeping the rodent population down.
Could anyone back my up on this (or set me straight if I’m wrong)? Links to sites with good information would be appreciated.
I hate, loathe, despise and abominate snakes, too.
but.
How many snakes are we talking, here? 4 is “manageable”, but a whole colony (what does one call a collection of snakes, anyway?) might be too much to handle.
Do they bask on your patio? bunk down on your stoop/cement driveway, wherever?
Hope not–that would take alot of getting used to, for me.
No link, but I would go the whole “they’re a part of nature, and do keep vermin down and have a right to their part of the eco-system” route.
Are these garter snakes?
One thing I strongly advise is to NOT make her look at, touch, hold one. Or tease her about it. I was made to do all those things as a kid, and 1. it didn’t help and 2. I hate the people who made me do it and 3. I became more phobic, not less.
Gee-not much help, am I? I just can’t rationalize killing them just to give someone peace of mind…
Are you sure? We get plenty of snakes around here, too. Mostly in the yards we get garter snakes, but nests of cottonmouths and rattlesnakes are not unheard of. If you tell your wife they’re not poisonous, then she gets bit by a highly venomous one, boy is she gonna be pissed at you!
I’ll try to get pictures, but I’m pretty sure they are not poisonous–they don’t have the more triangulated head. I think we are talking about the common garter snake. I don’t believe Cottonmouths or Rattlesnakes live in this part of Ohio (maybe not in Ohio at all). The only poisonous snake I know of in this part of town is the Copperhead, and it is rare at that.
I have seen 4 so far, and haven’t seen them since my wife scared THEM to death the other day.
I’ll go snake hunting today and see if I can’t link a nice photo-shoot by tomorrow.
Don’t worry eleanor, I’m not going to force her to confront the snakes, but I just don’t wont her going around trying to kill the things.
Looks like you get three different kinds of venomous snakes in Ohio. Two species of rattlers, and the copperhead.
If it’s just a garter snake, you can keep them away from the front of the house by getting rid of the hedges, mulch, ground cover (like ivy) and tall grass. If you keep that around the border of the wooded area, the snakes will be out of sight back there, and can still quietly hunt the occasional varmint while your wife is revelling in her peace of mind.
(Do not show your wife these pages without her permission.)
Note that all three are large and either banded or mottled. The standard garter snakes, rat snakes, and racers that we get around Ohio do not tend to be as brightly marked. (Some garter snakes are colorful, but they are much smaller than the venoous critters.)
The snakes are busy keeping down the population of grasshoppers (so that they don’t turn into a swarm of locusts) and mice and moles.
Oh, and some sites say mothballs will keep snakes away, some say they aren’t all that great for that, since snakes can’t smell well. Both camps agree that your yard should be moth-free after trying this method, though.
I’m not sure how common they are, and they may have been imports, but I’ve also seen cottonmouths (aka water moccasins) in the wild in Ohio.
In any event, however, any venomous snake in Ohio is going to be a pit viper, which means that characteristic triangular head. In fact, the only non-pit viper poisonous snake in North America is the coral snake, found only in the desert southwest. If your snakes don’t have the triangular head, and you’re in Ohio, then they’re assuredly not poisonous, and are therefore much less dangerous than the squirels (since snakes can’t carry rabies or fleas).
However, please note that your wife’s fear of snakes is probably not based on the actual danger they pose, so be aware that this information probably won’t be much comfort to her. If you want to show off your manly prowess, you could catch the snakes and carry them a comfortable distance away from the house, but I would not recommend delegating this task to her.
While a RancidYakButterTeaParty sounds oddly fun, I’m gonna go ahead and cross your name of the list of dopers I’d visit.
So, one thing you may want to do is give into her fears—a little. Offer to go a-snake-huntin’. Since she wants the vile things dead (I mean just LOOK at the reputation they have in the Bible!), why not just go and either whack them with a shovel or better yet, scoop them up and relocate them.
I think that even if you just roll around in the shrubs for a while as your wife stares out the window clutching the curtain with fear, you will gain some major points. Fear sucks–so don’t make fun of her.
There are lots and lots of garter snakes in Ohio. If the snakes you saw were small with yellow stripes like in Kythereia’s link, that’s probably what you saw. They are shy and completely harmless. If they were bigger, they were probably Black rat snakes. I have one of these guys living in the crawl space under the house. In a way this is good, because we live in a rural area that has lots of mice. In a way, it’s bad because I know if he’s living under there there’s lots of mice that are trying to get into the house! My snake is calm and peaceable; I can’t imagine him biting unless he either got stepped on or I tried to grab him. Neither is likely to happen.
Maybe you can explain it to your wife this way - wouldn’t she rather have snakes outside than mice (or Og forbid, rats) in the kitchen?
Actually, exposure therapy can be helpful if done right, as in very short sessions with gradual increases in the amount of interaction. Of course, the person has to be willing to participate.
I hate hate hate snakes too. It has NOTHING to do with being bitten. I grew up in an area that has no poisonous snakes. Doesn’t matter. The fear is of something unexpectedly slithering by. Yes, it’s irrational. But that doesn’t stop it from being very very frightening. I don’t care that it’s way across the street or on the other side of the yard. I still don’t want to see them. I don’t even like walking by the snakes in the pet store. Who knows if the cage cover is on tightly?!
Do you have any pets? I noticed at my parents’ house that the dog seemed to keep most of the snakes away. That might help. Or just spending time out in the yard (you, not her!) and chasing them away whenever you see them might help encourage them to move on to friendlier pastures.
You can’t reason with a phobia. My mother is majorly phobic of snakes. If she sees one in the yard, nobody rests until it’s dead. She would much, much rather have “mice (or Og forbid, rats) in the kitchen” than a known snake in the yard. It isn’t rational, but that’s the definition of a phobia. I killed my first snake (a garter snake, killed with a shovel) at age 7 because my dad (usually the snake-killer) was out to sea. Personally, I think you ought to kill them for her – she’s your wife, she ought to know she can depend on you to protect her, even from goofy shit she doesn’t really need any protection from. Or, if you really don’t want to kill them, round them up in a gunny sack and drive them many miles away before letting them go. But you ought to do something, IMO.
Snakes are so maligned. I adore them, poisonous ones n’ all. I just treat the latter with a HELL of a lot of respect. I have a now-loose kingsnake at your house, so I’ll refrain from having your wife over for coffee.
Fear though is something I run into a LOT, plus I have sympathy-- large roaches give me the massive willies. Your best bet is to definitely relocate them if possible, hopefully far away from your property. Also, in coolish weather, try keeping the ground moist. Snakes, being cold-blooded, will naturally turn away from anything colder than they are. Another option, if you don’t mind being a bit sly about it, is to go a few yards outside of your property and make that much more habitable for snakes than the property you live on. Overturned dark pots, dark stones, things that collect warmth are things that snakes love to hang out in or on, preferably in. Put a bowl to collect water in; most of the time snakes are looking for water, not prey if they’re moving about.
These beasties are incredibly shy (unlike roaches, those bastards). Then when you relocate the snakes, take them to the snake playground, and chances are that they’ll stay put.
