Pinetown - A male house snake “looking for his wife” and unborn babies gave a Highland Hills, Pinetown, grandmother the second surprise of her life in six days when he was found curled up under a pouffe in her bedroom.
Jackie Tindale, who woke up last Wednesday morning to find a female house snake cuddled up on her pillow against her shoulder, said her grandson had moved the stool while they were cleaning to reveal the second snake on Monday.
Pineridge Neighbourhood Watch members, including patroller and local snake enthusiast, John Aberdeen, had rushed to Tindale’s aid last week, alerting community network SA CAN to have an ambulance on standby in case she had been bitten.
Neighbourhood Watch chairman, Dylan Jenkins, said the first snake was later identified as a harmless, “heavily pregnant” female house snake due to lay between 15 to 20 eggs.
Tindale said this time her daughter had picked up the snake with a bucket and carried it to the lounge where it slipped onto the floor and slithered into an indoor water feature.
“I have lived in this house for 14 years and I have never had a snake in my home before, and then in a matter of six days, there is one in my bed and one under my pouffe.
“I don’t even know how long the female was here and whether he came in here looking for her. But let me tell you something, you have a tendency to sleep with one eye open.”
Tindale said she called out the neighbourhood watch again. Abderdeen said he was not at all surprised to be called to Tindale’s house a second time.
“I had a a feeling there might have been a male in the house because the female was pregnant, but I didn’t want to frighten the lady.” Aberdeen said he did try to subtly search for it in the house last week.
“If it was a poisonous snake it would have been a very different story,” he said.
“I don’t know how long the snakes had been in the house. They might have been there a long time.”
Aberdeen said he had picked up the snake by its tail.
“He had gone into the cold water so he was a bit aggressive. He wasn’t in a happy mood and he did try to bite me. He has no venom but lots of little teeth that can get stuck and cause infection.”
The good news for the male snake was that Aberdeen said “something” had made him hold on to the female snake instead of releasing her in Paradise Valley Nature Reserve as planned last week.
“When I released them far down into the nature reserve they went off as a pair and they should live out their lives without someone chopping their heads off,” Aberdeen said.
Daily News