It started
out as a typical fall morning, sitting in traffic in route to a jobsite to
check on the crew, doing building repairs, in a condo association our company
managed. My cell phone rang with a
familiar number and as I answered; “good morning Christie”, the sound of a
hysterical girl sobbing, gasping for breath and the inaudible sound of an
explanation of why she called.
Christie’s
parents had purchased a condo in the association I which I was headed. They had
hired me to do the remodel for their daughter’s condo while she attended the
University. The remodel finished early and came in on budget and I could not
imagine what had happened that would cause this young girl to be
hysterical.
I was only a
couple miles away but the traffic couldn’t move fast enough, so I cut off 2
cars to make a fast right turn and then had to creep through a school zone as I
listened to the sobs of Christie.
Clearing the school zone and speeding down the street to get to the
emergency, I quickly was breaking for a car that was waiting for traffic to
clear to make a left turn. As I steered
to the shoulder to pass on the right side of the car, the swampy shoulder tried
to pull me deeper to the right, I hit the accelerator, causing the backend to
swing hard to the right. I let up
steered back to the street and as the rear tire caught the pavement, slinging
mud everywhere, I was now, just a mile away.
As I entered
the complex, I was lucky as there wasn’t anyone walking along the street or
vehicles to contend with. I hit two
speed bumps hard enough to rattle the fillings out of my teeth, passing my crew
in a blur, I made a hard left turn to head straight to Christie’s condo. There she stood, wearing a bathrobe, wet hair
and tears streaming down her face. The
only thing she could do was point to the front door. As I ran to the door, I had no idea of what I
was about to be facing, I opened the door and saw nothing. “In there”, as she pointed to the bathroom
door, I opened the door and come face to face with her intruder. He wasn’t that big and I could sense his fear
as his black skin glistened. As I
stepped forward to grab him, he slid to my left to get away and I grabbed him
and now he did the only thing he could do, he bit me just above my left
elbow. Just as this was happening, one
of my carpenters pulled up to see what I was in such a hurry. He stepped into the door just as the struggle
started, which was also the same time Christie let out a scream and, leaping
backwards, almost knocking the six foot two, two-hundred fifty pound carpenter
off his feet. As he regained his balance, Christie ran behind him vibrating up
and down and crying uncontrollably. As I stepped towards the door, with a firm
grip on the intruder and his firm grip on me, the carpenter wasn’t in a real
big hurry to assist me with my situation.
I quickly grasped the Intruder behind his head and he released his grasp
but now wrapped its body around my arm, you see the intruder was a bull, black
racer snake. The carpenter, gave me
plenty of room as I headed through the garden foyer, turning right to the side
of the building to release the snake into the brush line. The snake had a ridged grip on my arm and I
must have been squeezing him just as hard it appeared to be grasping for breath
with a wide open mouth. He reduced his
grip and allowed me to pull him away from my arm and I tossed him towards the
bushes. The problem was, the snake
decided the battle wasn’t over and came racing back towards me, coiled up and
struck at me several times. I kick
blocked both strikes and he turned and slithered into the bushes. I returned to the condo as the carpenter was
attempting to comfort Christie and now between the sniffles and tears, Christie
explained what happened.
She had just
finished her shower, wrapped her hair and was preparing to put her makeup on
when the snake crawled out of the toilet.
She told me she didn’t want to stay in the condo anymore and started
crying again. I immediately called her
mother to advise her what had happened, (which became another horrible
mistake), her mother broke out in tears and sounded a lot like Christie. How could this have happened, she asked? I wasn’t sure if my explanation was going to
give any comfort to either of them, but with all the crazy things I’ve
experienced in my building/remodeling career, I did the best I could. The snake had climbed bushes or trees to get
to the warmth of the building roof, as well as look for food. Because frogs are part of the snake’s diet,
it had probably learned frogs like to live in the plumbing vent stacks. The problem is; frogs can stick to the sides
of the plumbing stack and the snake can’t and as the snake went for the frog,
it fell to the bottom of the drain. It
had followed the flow of water and sound, went through the P-trap in the
toilet, saw the light and made its exit.
I advised both women that I could fix the problem so it wouldn’t happen
again but I could tell, Christie wasn’t thrilled about staying in her
condo. Before the semester was over,
Christie’s parents contracted with us to list their condo for sale.
What
happened to Christie is not an everyday occurrence but it does happen more
often than you know. There are a couple
different solutions to remedy the problem so it may not happen again. Keep the bushes around your home away from
the sides and eaves and if you have wood siding on your home, make sure that
the bottom of the siding does not have exposed gaps for varmints to crawl
inside the wall. Make sure branches and
limbs are several feet from your roof.
To keep varmints out of your plumbing stack, install critter guards over
the exposed pipe. Critter guards are
also helpful in the south east where the gray squirrel likes to chew away the
lead plumbing boots.
Yep, just
another day in the real estate business, association management, sales and
construction in North Central Florida, but this could happen anywhere there are
tree frogs and black snakes…
