A Mechanicsville, Virginia, woman spotted a copperhead snake near the crawl space of her home, which may be the least of her worries.
Richard Perry of the Powhatan-based Virginia Wildlife Management and Control (VWMC) told Fox News Digital his privately owned wildlife removal company deals with snakes nearly every day.
Virginia Wildlife Management and Control retrieved a 2-foot copperhead from a home in Mechanicsville, Virginia last week. (Virginia Wildlife Management and Control)
On Tuesday, his company removed a five-and-a-half-foot black rat snake from a person’s garage, and the day before, they retrieved a two-foot copperhead from a woman’s driveway.
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Copperheads are common in central Virginia, and Perry said his company comes across the venomous serpents between six and 12 times a week.
Last week, he was called out to a home about 50 minutes away in Mechanicsville, after an electrician doing some work on faulty wiring inside a home found a copperhead inside the crawl space of a woman’s house.
When Perry arrived, he looked around in an area he hesitated to call that of a hoarder.
A woman in Mechanicsville, Va., found a copperhead near the door of her crawl space. (Virginia Wildlife Management and Control)
The space was “jam packed with stuff,” he said, and he told the woman there was no way he was going to find any type of snake there.
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But he gave an honest effort.
“We went up underneath that house and it was loaded with snake skins, not copperhead skins, but she had a lot of rat snake skins under there,” Perry said. “She had some that were four, five, six feet long.”
After crawling out, Perry asked the woman if she was aware that the copperhead was not the only snake occupying the space. She asked him if he was serious, and he said he was “dead serious.”
He then showed the woman several pictures of snake skins he took while in the crawl space. She was shocked.
Virginia Wildlife Management and Control captured a copperhead venomous snake in Mechanicsville, Virginia. (Virginia Wildlife Management and Control)
Perry and his team set a few snake traps underneath the house and told the woman to leave them alone unless a snake is captured. If that happens, he told her, she should notify him, and he would come remove the snake.
One of the traps captured a rat snake, and after notifying VWMC, she tossed the snake and the trap.
A few days later, she called back and said a copperhead was at the doorway of her crawl space.
The woman insisted they come remove the snake. With a 50-minute trip each way, Perry said the chance of the snake still being there when he arrived was “slim-to-none.”
Miraculously though, it was still there when he arrived.
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The snake was lethargic and not moving much, more than likely because it had eaten a meal of frogs and lizards from underneath the house.
But as soon as he touched the snake, it came to life.
Perry said copperheads are not generally aggressive, but they are mainly mild-mannered.
Out of the three venomous snakes in Virginia — copperhead, timber rattlesnake and cottonmouth — the copperhead is the least toxic, he said.
“Your chances of ever dying from a copperhead bite is pretty much slim to none,” Perry noted. “I don’t ever say impossible because anything is possible…but you will wish you were dead. It will mess you up. It’ll make for a very bad day.”
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As for the woman’s home where the copperhead was found, it is probably not the last time she will have a run-in with a snake.
“Her crawl space is just loaded,” Perry said. “God only knows how many more snakes are underneath that house.”
