When I was in college, my summers were spent working for a pest control company. The majority of this time was spent underneath houses. You would think with that much time under houses I might have seen a lot of snakes. There was only one time that I actually saw a snake. That was a time that my boss sent me on a job actually hunting for a snake.
The house where he sent me to was located in a part of town where we rarely went. The people who lived in these houses were the lowest of low income people. The houses were old and small. They would have been considered poorly constructed when they were built. They were more concerned about putting any food on the table instead of whether or not there might be a few bugs in the house. Things would have to be pretty bad for a family living in this house to even consider calling a pest control company. The family who lived in this particular house had called our company because they had seen a snake poking its head up between the boards in the floor of the house. I would say that was bad enough.
My boss had told me to go under the house and told me a particular chemical to spray. He wasn’t sure if I would see the snake or not. My goal was to get under the house, spray as quickly as possible and get out. As I started crawling under the house, the ground was giving away beneath me. This usually indicated the presence of sort of rodents. It also meant there was a good chance there was a snake there to try and eat them. I sprayed and moved quickly. At one point I noticed that I had accidentally sprayed a bare wire. The chemical was sizzling on the bare wire. I had been told to watch for wires and not to spray them. While I was watching this to make sure I hadn’t caused any problems, I saw a snake sliding down out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t that close to me but it was too close for comfort. I sprayed in the general direction of the snake and crawled backwards out from under the house as fast as I could. I looked back under the house but didn’t see the snake. I sprayed in the general direction of where it had been. I don’t know if I “got” the snake or not. I don’t think we had any return calls to that house.