It’s so much of a plan that if I saw a Black Snake in my basement, I’d do my best to make it happy and keep it there. I’ve just done a huge cleaning and replacement job in a guest room due to rodent damage that one or two good, hungry snakes could have prevented.
Every night is Unlimited Buffet night in my attic with a six-foot long fat black snake stuffing itself. According to the skins I find, there’s probably more than one. I first noticed the skins about thirty years ago.
I’d go with a cat versus a snake unless you put the snake in the basement. Having an uninvited guests, means more uninvited guests..
The people in my area started a pogrom on the local snakes and we ended up with a rat and mouse plague you simply cannot imagine.
We were catching *dozens* a day, in the beginning.
I spent many hours checking all the wires in the house because for some reason, the little fiends delight in chewing stuff to hell for no good reason.
And they were HUGE.
I can’t remember the scientific name but they were ‘wood rats’ that were unhomed when a shyster connived the guy who lives on the other side of the ridge out of his goats.
With no more free food, the endless horde went in search of other grub...and it’s only a few hundred yards from there to here, over the ridge.
What a nightmare.
It took us about 7 years to finally eradicate them all.
All because sissies just *had* to kill all the snakes.
Idiots.
Black snakes...
I used to have a problem with bats which would cling to the screened gables in my attic. Guano would foul my patio below and some of it ended up in the attic. One day I went to the attic to look for some item or another and in the dim light from the gable I saw what appeared to be a garden hose in the screen. Turns out it was a black snake feasting on the resident bats. I didn’t bother the friendly snake and he cleared my attic of bats thereafter.
Some time later I spotted him in the yard. Evidently, the bats were a good dietary supplement as he was now 5ft. long or more. Black snakes are good neighbors or even attic guests. My guess is that he came in through the crawl space and made his way to the attic through the walls.