A welcome and fortuitous visitor

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Our old house is what I euphemistically call porous: humidity that makes salt too sticky to come out of the shaker, the occasional possum that comes into the kitchen, once a tree frog on the outside of the downstairs toilet. But the other day was an exceptionally good invasion – when I went to get coffee, there was a baby rat snake right on the kitchen floor. I tried to get him to put him outside as we got rid of our one-time cotton rat problem (those are nice-looking rats that occasionally get inside), but it scooted (or perhaps I should say slithered) under a kitchen cabinet. These snakes can climb right up a concrete wall and were often considered a welcome and fortuitous visitor to old houses where rats or squirrels would get in the attic.