Rattlesnake slides into wall at Arizona home, so snake catcher decides to annoy it

If there’s anything worse than finding a rattlesnake at midnight, it’s watching it slide into a hole in a wall at your home.

It happened just that way outside a home in Buckeye, Arizona, and snake catcher Bryce Anderson of Rattlesnake Solutions was put in the awkward position of tugging at the rattlesnake’s tail.

The snake refused to budge, however.

“This one was a doozy, but a fun one for sure!” Anderson said in a Facebook post.

“By the time I had arrived, it had its tail sticking out of the wall (where) it was planning to spend the night. (It) eventually did end up with (its) whole body in the wall. … At this point in the call, my only hope was to upset the snake,” Anderson told McClatchy News in an email.

So, how do you upset a venomous snake without hurting it?

Anderson improvised, resorting to a good old-fashioned — and very annoying — spray with a water hose.

“Admittedly I wasn’t certain this would work. While a snake might appreciate a drink from a hose on a hot day, too much water being sprayed in one direction for a constant period of time can become rather bothersome, often forcing snakes out from where they’re hiding,” he said.

So Anderson stood there with the hose pointed at the hole. Ten minutes passed, then 20 minutes, then 30 minutes.

“Finally, after what seemed like ages, our culprit got sick of being sprayed with water and made a dash for it, giving me an opportunity to bucket (it) before (it) could find (its) way into any more predicaments,“ Anderson said.

The snake was identified as a 3-foot Mohave rattlesnake, a species that can reach 4 feet in length, experts say. Their venom is ”potent in neurotoxins that attack the nervous system and hemotoxins that attack the blood,” the National Park Service reports.

The wall where it hid was a “perfect” rattlesnake shelter, Anderson said. What’s not clear is whether the snake had been living there for months or just discovered the hole that night.

Anderson hauled away the snake and released it unharmed into the wild, standard procedure for Arizona-based Rattlesnake Solutions.

Buckeye is about a 40-mile drive southwest from Phoenix.

This story was originally published May 23, 2024, 6:53 AM.