The Case of The Curious Snake & Our New Bathroom Pipe

About three years ago we decided to have our old, old bathroom down up. It was a major upgrade as the house did not even have a toilet inside, in fact I think this house could have been built at the time of the invasion! eons ago.

We had the room re-plumbed, tiled, new bathroom fittings installed and now I am happy to say, it looks so good the Queen would be very happy visiting our loo.

All the fittings are from Germany so they are top of the range. The shower head is large but comes with a water saver installed.So we can enjoy a good water flow without feelings of guilt! The sink is so beautiful - aqua glass and the bath is one of those huge comfortable numbers that are idyllic to lie in and read a book.

However I digress and the point of this story is to tell you about the time the plumber was working on installing the new bathroom pipes to connect up the new bath. It was a very hot summer and at one point there was a weekend where it was necessary for our plumber to leave an uncapped wide-necked pipe open out in the garden; the pipe which was in the process of being plumbed into the bathroom.

I clearly remember that I was working on the computer in the spare room and my husband was taking a nap so the house was really, really quiet. One of those hot, quiet slumber - filled afternoons. My husband got up from his nanny nap and asked whether I would like a cup of tea. Naturally I said yes. He went into the kitchen where I could hear him make very loud remarks such as "Oh, No, What, etc"

I honestly thought that he was having a heart attack. I rushed into the kitchen to check him out and found him bent over extremely white faced and looking worried. "What is going on?" I asked. "Do you need a doctor?"

"No " he said. He had seen a very long brown snake disappearing down between the skirting and the wall. About 6feet long was the estimated length. Brown snakes are killers and to have one in our house was not good!

So naturally I panicked and jumped around saying things like "what do we do now?" "do you think it is still under the house?" "who do we ring?" and "we need to do whatever we need to do to make sure it is gone." A phone call was made to the local snake catcher who was unable to come over but he advised that snakes are not known for hanging around and that he was probably halfway to Tumut by now. He asked if we kept hens or had water lying around and we said no, which meant that our garden was not that attractive for Mr. Brown to loiter around in.

Seems that snakes are very curious creatures and that it was highly likely that it had entered into the house via the open pipe in the garden and slithered it's way up the hallway, going right past us in our separate rooms to end up in the kitchen. Nice.

Snakes cannot hear but if they feel any vibrations they know to hide; however as we were not moving and were both being fairly quiet in our endeavours the snake must have thought it was quite safe to glide in and check out the house.

When my husband went into the kitchen to make the tea I am unsure as to who was the more surprised - the snake or him. Still all is well if it ends well. Which it did.

author: a.a.gallagher

copyright. August 2011

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