The Intruder

 

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…