Snake Removal in Hiram, GA

Snakes around your Hiram home

Draws and creek bottoms are the main routes snakes take into Hiram. Those damp, brushy corridors run behind new subdivisions and past older yards, so a snake hunting frogs and mice along a draw can reach a backyard without crossing open ground. Around houses, shady beds, stone walls and the cool dark under porches, sheds and crawlspaces offer resting spots. At the town edge, the strip where fresh sod meets brush is where snakes appear most.

Most of the snakes people ring about here are harmless rat snakes, and truly venomous ones are rare. Georgia counts 47 native snake species, and seven are venomous; near a Hiram home the venomous one you might actually meet is the copperhead. Every harmless native snake is protected by state law, and killing one is illegal. What to do depends on where the snake is.

Outside: usually best left alone

A snake crossing a yard or warming itself by a driveway is just passing. Most of the time it is gone in minutes to an hour, often before anyone could arrive to take it. Keep children and pets back, leave it room, and let it go on its way. The cases that need a pro are a snake indoors or in a garage, one that keeps coming back to the same place, or one you think is venomous near a walkway.

Inside: call right away

Indoors, the picture changes. Newer Hiram homes have holes around plumbing and utility lines a snake can follow, and older homes have open crawlspace vents plus the space behind a baseboard or under a porch that leads to the foundation. The more time passes, the harder the snake is to find. Watch where it goes, clear the room if you can, and call.

Rat snakes, kingsnakes and the copperhead

Rat snakes lead the list of snakes near homes here. They climb well, so they show up on porches, under eaves and in outbuildings, usually on the trail of rodents. Kingsnakes hunt other snakes, copperheads included. The copperhead is the venomous one to learn: it vanishes into fallen leaves, pine needles and log piles, favouring shaded yard edges and the wooded rim of a new neighbourhood. People mostly guess venomous when the snake is not, which is why naming it comes first.

Killing a non-venomous snake is illegal

Georgia law protects every harmless native snake, and hurting one breaks the law. Charging at a snake with a shovel is also behind many bites — snakes strike from farther than people think. Our crew takes the snake away safely and deals with a protected species by the book, with nobody in striking range.

What brings snakes in: food and overgrowth

Snakes want two things: meals and hiding places. Near the highway and new homes, meals usually mean rodents pulled in by the same waste that feeds rats. On wooded lots, meals mean rodents, frogs and insects along brushy edges. Tangled beds, tall grass against the house, firewood stacked by the wall and clutter under a porch all offer hiding places. Clear those, sort any rodent issue, and the property loses much of its pull for snakes.

Under the porch, in the shed and in the crawlspace

Plenty of Hiram homes sit over crawlspaces, some with open lattice or vent screens missing, and porches and sheds with hollow ground beneath. Those places stay cool and dark and often hold mice, which is why snakes wind up there. After the snake is gone, a pro can block vent and foundation holes with metal screening and show where rodents get in, since that food source keeps pulling snakes under the house.