Snakes in a basement

This is about the best place to get the best advice related to common rural problems. Over the years I know there have been snakes in a basement of a house I just bought. Half of the house has a deep basement. The other half of the basement is just two crawl tunnels for plumbing and heating. The walls (foundation) are limestone rocks. They are cemented up pretty well. The window wells are somewhat poor I think. One side of the house has an attached garage with a good poured foundation around it. The three other sides have porches with good poured foundations. Taking out the porches and garage there is probably only 40 feet of exposed limestone foundation to the outside. It could probably use some work this summer to check and close it up tight. I see three or four snake skins in the basement. Snakes have tried to get up through plumbing holes and around heat ducts in the past. Probably less problems in the last 5 years than ever though. My question is how do I get rid of them before I tighten things up????? How can you exterminate them or drive them out??? Are there any poisons?? High frequency noise??? Cats??? Lights???? Smells/odors???? What about fumigation? I know if I am driving them out that this shouldn't probably be done until spring as they probably wouldn't go. Your thoughts are appreciated. andy

Mongoose get snakes don't they? Lol. I have no advice. Good answers will come on here for you. Good luck.

There is someting down there that is attracting them...rodents. Get rid of the atrtractants.

Where do I get one of those mongooses? Are they house trained? Joking.

if theres a door on basement and nobody upstairs you could hook a hose to exhaust pipe of whatever you got handy and stick it in door and stuff rags/whatever around it...couple hours later there shouldnt be anything alive left in there.
have some exhaust fans handy to air place out before you try to go back inside or you will be layin beside snakes.
i've seen snake repellents at the feed store...dont know if they work or not.
also i always heard snakes dont like banana tree stalks...supposedly you lay em around perimeter of yard and they wont cross over them.

Snakes don't like to crawl over salt.

You have to drive them out first then seal up the entrances.

I have used mothballs pretty effectively to drive snakes, woodchucks, skunks out of enclosed areas. Spread them around were you suspect they are at. You can create a barrier of them to keep them from moving in directions that you don't want.

I agree with earlier posts that they are likely feeding on something so this may be a multi-step process. No matter what you need to seal off the entry points after they leave.

Mothballs are cheap at the dollar stores.

Is it Mongoose's or Mongeese?

A Mongoose would do the job just fine but the federal law and the fine you would have to pay for having one might not be good. Yep there not legal to own in the U.S..
Now as to your problem this time of year you should not have them in there so seal it up in the winter and they will not be there in the summer since snakes are not out this time of year unless you live where it does not get cold

Pretty much,we just live with them. That said,we've been told that hydrated lime poured around will burn their bellys and deter them. Been told they don't like mothballs either.

If it's mice there after mice don't like bounce sheets.Spread them around the edge of the basement and crawl space and it might chase both away.

So, you think the snakes hibernate outside of the house somewhere in the winter and are probably not in the house. You don't think they would even be back in the dirt under the house where the crawl tunnels are? I would assume a food source would be mice. I think the previous owners did a pretty good job on rodents. Great ideas. Thanks.

I'm sorry you have snakes and sorry that you will continue to have snakes. Tried moth balls, salt, vinigar, electric fence wire, hot of course, boy was that a bad day. I've had bull snake skin 4 to 5 foot long in the attic. Garter crawling in the livingroom, and a timber rattler in the bathroom. That was when I went to the DNR. Nothing there except learn to live with them, same at the pest control. Was told you can block off all the entrences but what about the snakes still living in the house. I know what you are goint through.

If they are still under the house this time of year they would not live long this spring because of lack of food so either way if you seal it now so they can not get in or out then they will not be or should not be a problem this spring. But the seal it up so they can not get in is not all that easy since they can/do fit in to and threw so tight places

They sell a sulfur powder mixture that is supposed to be a repellent. I have used the stuff before at a lady's house around her flower beds, but I don't know if it was effective or not.

I've not tried them nor know anyone who has, but there are chemical snake repellents available.

Snake A Way is but one of them available Gemplers and others.

Get rid of the mice and crickets, the snakes are there for food.

Beyond that you probably can't drive them out. They can travel all over an old farmhouse inside the walls. I knew there was at least one in the house because I found the skins in the basement occasionally. The only time I caught one was after my wife had vacuumed a second floor bedroom carpet one appeared in the living room. Apparently it didn't like the vibration; it was a black snake, good six-feet long that I released out by the barn.

My dad used to turn hogs in the bluff pasture, to keep the rattle snake, and copper head population down. More legal than a mongoose, but might smell a little.

As a 20 year Pest Control veteran, I can tell you that for the most part the repellents described are mostly ineffective. There are only about 4 ways of dealing with snakes and you have to use all 4.
1. Exclusion. Your on the right track with sealing the access to your basement areas. You mentioned sealing your basement foundation and stem walls, but I have seen snakes burrow as deep as 13 feet to gain access to a place of harborage. You need to find the access points from the inside. I don't know if you can get them there but what I do is once I find the opening I use a colored smoke grenade and pop it off in the opening, seal it off form the onside and find out where the smoke comes up on the outside. Found an opening almost 20 feet from the house under a wood pile one time. So to exclude them you have to find out where they are getting in and take care of that first.
2. Attractants. What is attracting them? Food? Heat? Water? Find out what they are after and remove it. This time of year I have found that both heat and prey are usually the attractants.
Not much you can do about the heat except use it to your advantage and trap them. a heating pad set on low and a funnel trap have worked the best for me. The funnel trap is similar to a lobster trap. I also like to use a live rodent as an additional attractant.
3. When it comes to repellents be careful that you don't drive them into areas of the house that are occupied buy you and your family or areas that are even less accessible like wall cavities and attic spaces. As I briefly mentioned, repellents are very ineffective. Now I didn't say they don't work, I just said they don't work well and can cause other problems if the pest is already in the house.
4. Removing the attractant and changing the environment. This is usually the most effective way of getting rid of them. Rodent control is easier than controlling the snake. Get rid of the mice and the snake will leave. Now with heat as the attractant you have another problem. A snake being cold blooded will just go into hibernation when it gets cold so trying to freeze it out will only cause it to hibernate or move in with you. In the spring they come out and you still have the problem. But if you can use the heating pad technique to trap them you will find it effective if the warmth is the attractant. I personally prefer the snakes to the rodents. We have a lot of guarder snakes, gopher snakes, and ribbon snakes. We as a species, have an inherent fear of snakes because for the most part people do not poses the knowledge to tell the difference between the poisonous and the harmless, so we fear them all. But usually if you have a number of harmless snakes in the area you won't find any poisonous there. There is a lot of material available out there but I have yet to find any tried and true technique for curing your problem. Good luck to you with this, LarryT

I've read/heard a good method to catch them is to put a bunch of tape around with the sticky side up. They crawl over it and get tangled up and start trashing around. Apparently makes quite a noise. Then kill them, or better yet get something to pick them up and throw outside

Bet you don't have many mice or rats. I'd leave the snakes where they are. Much cleaner and less destructive than rodents and don't carry the diseases they can/do. And a snake is not going to hurt you at all 9unless it's poisonous and you crowd it.

Dave

For some reason snakes have picked this spot "house" to over winter. Come in every fall and leave every spring. Been doing this for unknown time. Found black snake in hay bales in basement barn in the middle of winter. Kicked it out and away it went in very cold weather. Houses like yours really have no proven control method. Only thing I can think is place some old carpet in the crawl space for them to be under during the winter away from the rest of the deep basement. OR put on leather gloves and go to work with a burlap bag.

Fortunately I don't live there. I recently bought the farm and house. It is a big house with five big rooms downstairs, an open stairway, four big bedrooms upstairs, two enclosed porches, an open porch, and an attached garage. Pretty well kept up. Too good to tear down. I am thinking about digging down along the foundation and tuckpointing the limestone. Then I am thinking about attaching this rigid insulation board to the foundation which is textured to look like concrete or stone. I believe I will pull the limestone window wells out too and put in the modern metal ones. Snakes love limestone. Probably put in some new basement windows too. Lots of interesting ideas. Thanks.

First thing I would do is get me a couple of big ol" tom cats and put down there. I use to have a lot of trouble with rattlesnakes around my place till I got a couple of good cats. Never see one anymore.

moth balls, just put them aroud in basement and crawl space.

What are your snakes eating? Air? No, they're probably eating mice and other vermin. Get rid of the mice and the snakes will move on. How to get rid of the mice? Well, they need a food source, too. Eliminate whatever the mice are eating and they'll leave, and the snakes will follow.