Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question but no where else seems appropriate.

Just purchased a house at auction, had the roof replaced. I am concerned that some snakes may have made the house home while it was vacant and deteriorating for almost three years. What can I do to drive snakes and other rodents out of the house? Do any of those electronic gadgets work or are there chemicals that I can use?

I am eventually going to gut the place but I may need to rehab the newest portion first and use it as home until some financials improve. But the other half is objecting to occupying any space with snakes....



Thanks in advance

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Mongeese.
~Prag

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

After the "Mongeese" kill the snakes how do get rid of them?

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Play some raunching Whitesnake at top volume, that'll drive 'em off. :biggrin:

Seriously, if it's a serious problem in your area, invest a few hunderd and call an exterminator (not Dale Gribble) for a complete inspection..

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

snakes like any predator will follow the food and habitat (if you have cold winters they will also come to warmth)

so...do things to get rid of and kill rodents etc

clean the place up, clean the area around the house etc.

if it were me i would fill the house with rat poison- decon..and mothballs...and traps...

and make sure any debris and other habitat areas for both the rodents and the snakes are eliminated

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

:111::111::111:

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

mothballs ...

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Pied Piper???

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

:tongue_ma::tongue_ma::tongue_ma:
Love the Simpsons

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

marrngtn,

We did just about the same thing back in 1981. We bought a century old farm house for 18k. Not much land came with the property as the owner just surveyed off a lot with the house and put it up for sale. It had been vacant for 3-4 years and had not had proper upkeep for many years, (rental).

We had rats, mice and even snakes. My first job was to close as many of the entry points as I could find, get a cat, and set traps for the rodents. It was a really big project as even the sills were rotten and had to be replaced. The wiring had been done around 1946 and was condemned, so I even had to rewire from the service on to all the way to new outlets. It did have water into the house to a sink and shower & washer hookup. No inside commode, only a two seater up the path. No heating system other than two chimneys. On a plus side it did have that outhouse, a large chicken coop, a two story shack (called a 'boy house') that at one time had been use to house farm hands/slaves? Also, an old milk house, and a brick smoke house.

We did have room for two large gardens as well, plus those first few years we planted lots of fruit trees. It was a lot of work but I was much younger. We at one time or other had pigs, chickens, and goats. So on that small plot of ground, we were able to produce a lot of our own food and paid off the mortgage in half the time we needed to. Now 18k is not a big amount, but we had all the expense of some serious remodeling. When I had work I wasn't making all the much either, around $5-7 an hour. I had a truck payment on top of that.

Good luck with your new endeavor. We sold that house in 2004 and moved to our present land, which now has two homes and 13+ acres. We're doing the same things here, except the house that was here didn't need quite as much work, it did have snakes and rodents, but those are gone now. The house my wife and I live in is actually a repo double wide. It had been torn up some, lights missing, carpet and cabinets missing from kitchen and baths. So we got the land and the one house - adult son lives in it, plus the house we live in and the buildings we have added for around 175k. Good thing about it is, it's all paid for. Anything we add is paid for as we add it, to stay out of debt.

I still have a lot of things I want to add, like fencing, a place for a couple pigs, and a shed for either goats or maybe llamas (looking into that option. I've just gotten the concrete in my new barn (spell that work shop garage). Putting in the new shop in that now that the concrete is cured.

The work goes on.........:biggrin: Hope I've been of some encouragement.:ok:

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Like someone else said, they'll follow the food. Get rid of the rats/mice/assorted vermin, and they'll be forced to leave as well. Sealing off entry points, poison, traps, mothballs, etc is a good place to start. I also had someone tell me once to fill a pie plate with Red Devil lye crystals and put a saucer of sugar water out for rats. They'll step in the lye to get to the sweetened water, then they'll lick their paws to clean themselves, and the lye does the rest. Never tried it, so I can't vouch for that.

And too, it depends on yours and your other halfs' relationship with old Mr No-shoulders. We used to catch every chicken snake and rat snake we could find and release them in our barn. Kingsnakes will kill and eat other snakes. May not be something you wanna live with, but some can be beneficial.

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

It is, however, unlikely to endear him to the neighbors.:wink:

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Call Samuel L. Jackson.

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

Burning the place down to the foundation should work well. Plus, that way you can get some financial assistance (homeowners insurance) for the remodeling. Just make sure that the local "riff raff" are suspected as the cause...

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

I had a snake problem at an old house I bought. The neighbors cat killed a couple of them and brought them out of the crawl space into the yard. The cats are also good for eating the mice and rats which draw the snakes in and provide a food source to the snakes.

I have always heard mothballs work, but that may be an urban legend. Plus its hard to catch them and cut their balls off!

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

ahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........makes you wonder how the heck they do it on a commercial basis, doesn't it ?

Yet another job I'm glad I don't have.....................

Re: Question for the Experts at GIM
 

They don't need to cut them off. They just send all the male moths to the convenience store at night to buy tampons, and they fall off on their own! :biggrin: