Many people would not want to imagine a snake on their property, mainly because it can be poisonous and even deadly. However, snakes could make their way into a building and find hiding places in small holes and crevices during the winter to hide from the extreme weather. In particular, snakes can get into your house walls through various small spaces and gaps and remain there for as long as it is cold outside.
Keep reading to find out why snakes might live in your walls and how they get in.
Can A Snake Climb A Wall?
If you already know that a snake can climb a tree, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it can also climb a vertical wall. This is despite the fact that, unlike a lizard, a snake doesn’t have limbs, claws, or sticky toe pads for climbing. Interestingly, their body can also burrow, glide through the air, or swim, without changing their body structure.
Tree-climbing snakes are generally slender with long prehensile tails that coil and hold onto branches when they are climbing to prevent falling. Some snake species can also meander through the gaps, cracks, and openings, and make their way upwards when it comes to walls.
It is impossible for snakes to crawl without friction, so a very rough surface in the wall can provide perfect grips for them to climb. However, like the western rat snakes, the majority of them avoid going up a smooth wall because they fall off easily. These reptiles cannot stick on walls, they must have something to grab onto and push off of it. However, only snakes that feed on rodents are excellent climbers and are great at climbing walls.
How Do Snakes Get In House Walls?
One of the main reasons that could make a snake get into a house wall is to search for food. Some species of snakes feast on rodents such as rats and mice. Since these rodents are common pests in homes, a snake might find its way into your property, and ultimately enter your house to hunt these creatures. For this reason, you might hear a hissing or slithering sound in your wall where the snake is waiting to catch its prey.
Another thing that attracts a snake into your house is the favorable conditions that might suit its food sources, i.e. the rodents. But besides the presence of rodents and their odors, snakes might be lured into the house by conditions like darkness and dampness.
Similarly, most snakes will run away from the cold weather outside during the winter and find some space in parts of the drywall in your house to go into a brumation state. Since these reptiles have elongated and slim bodies, they will easily fit into any crevices and cracks that any rodent could use as their passage.
Your poorly sealed windows or doors, gutters, cracks in the siding and bricks, open pipes that stick out of the house, and dryer vents are some of the channels that a snake might use to enter the house.
You’ll often find snakes slithering or entering an attic through the wall, trying to search for food. So, if you have rodents in the house, your chances of having a snake in the wall are much greater.
Do Snakes Make Sounds In Walls?
Snakes will also make specific noises in the wall. You can often hear these creatures slithering across drywall or hissing from the interior of your house. You can easily distinguish the sound made by a snake from any other noises you have been hearing from other rodents, such as running in the ceiling or the crawlspace. But still, a snake can make unusual sounds in the wall other than slithering and hissing.
Moreover, sounds are not the only way to tell whether or not there is a snake in the walls of your house. You may also find a pile of their shed skin pieces on the floor or by the wall. The snake sheds the old, dry, scaly skin as it grows, rubbing against a hard surface like a wall. At the same time, you might notice slippery tracks when you inspect crawlspace or any dusty area. This will give you an idea of where the snake has headed.
If you would be interested in keeping snakes out of your property and house, ensure to keep the surrounding grounds clear of dense vegetation. Also, ensure that you eliminate rodents from your house, and fill in the cracks, gaps, and openings in the wall of your house. These are just some of the basic initiatives we would recommend as preventive measures.
However, if you fear that a snake has taken up residence inside your wall, call us immediately! We will happily assist you with removing any snake that found its way into your home. Our experienced snake catchers at Wildlife Troopers are the best in South Florida, they can safely capture and humanely relocate the snake into its natural habitat. We also offer a free video inspection, which can help you identify whether the snake is venomous or not. So don’t hesitate to contact us now for a free removal quote.
