Finding a snake inside your home is startling, but the most important thing to do is stay calm and avoid chasing it into hiding. Most snakes that end up indoors are non-venomous species like garter snakes or rat snakes that wandered in while following prey or seeking shelter. They don’t want to be in your house any more than you want them there, and with the right approach, you can get them out safely and keep them from coming back.
What to Do Right Now
Keep your distance and observe the snake from across the room. Note where it is and, if possible, close interior doors to limit which rooms it can reach. If you can identify it as non-venomous (more on that below), you have a few options for removal. Place a large bucket or wastebasket over it, slide a piece of cardboard underneath, and carry the whole thing outside. You can also open a nearby exterior door and use a broom to gently guide it toward the exit.
If the snake has already slipped behind furniture or into a wall cavity, try placing a damp towel on the floor in that room with a trash can turned on its side next to it. Snakes are drawn to cool, damp hiding spots, and you may find it curled under the towel later. Check the area periodically.
If you suspect the snake is venomous, or you simply aren’t comfortable handling it, leave the room and call a licensed wildlife removal specialist. Your state fish and wildlife agency can provide a list of permitted trappers. Many local animal control agencies no longer handle wildlife calls, so a private removal service is often the faster option.
How to Tell if a Snake Is Venomous
In most of North America, venomous snakes are pit vipers: rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths. They share a few features you can spot from a safe distance. Their heads tend to be triangular or spade-shaped, noticeably wider at the back than the neck. They also have a small heat-sensing pit on each side of the face, located between the eye and the nostril. If you’re close enough to see the eyes, venomous pit vipers have elliptical, cat-like pupils, while most harmless species have round pupils.
These rules aren’t foolproof. Many non-venomous snakes, especially watersnakes, flatten their heads when they feel threatened, making them look triangular. Coral snakes, found in the southeastern U.S., are venomous but have round pupils and slender heads. The safest approach is to treat any snake you can’t positively identify as potentially dangerous. Take a photo from a distance if you can. Local herpetological societies and wildlife agencies can often identify a snake from a picture within minutes.
How Snakes Get Inside
Snakes can squeeze through surprisingly small gaps. Some species fit through an opening the size of a quarter. The most common entry points are gaps under exterior doors (especially garage doors), cracks in the foundation, spaces around pipes and utility lines where they enter the wall, uncovered floor drains, and open crawl space vents. Snakes don’t chew or dig their way in. They exploit holes that already exist, including burrows dug by mice and rats.
The reason a snake entered your home almost always comes down to food or shelter. If you have a rodent problem, snakes will follow the mice right through the same gaps those mice used. A cool, dark basement or crawl space is also appealing on its own, especially during extreme heat or cold.
Sealing Your Home Against Snakes
A thorough inspection of your home’s exterior is the single most effective prevention measure. Walk the full perimeter and check every point where something penetrates the wall: pipes, wiring, dryer vents, HVAC lines, and hose bibs. Seal small cracks in the foundation with caulk or expanding foam. For larger openings around vents and crawl space access points, use hardware cloth, a fine wire mesh that lets air pass through but blocks snakes and rodents alike.
Install door sweeps on every exterior door, including the one between the garage and the house. Garage doors are a particularly common entry point because their rubber seals wear out, leaving a gap along the bottom. Weatherstripping around windows and basement casements closes another route. Pay special attention to bathroom penetrations on exterior walls, where plumbing pipes often leave gaps behind escutcheon plates.
Reducing What Attracts Them
Eliminating a snake’s food supply is just as important as sealing entry points. Snakes living near homes are almost always there because rodents are nearby. Store pet food and birdseed in sealed containers rather than open bags in the garage. If you use bird feeders, clean up spilled seed regularly, since it draws mice, which in turn draw snakes.
Around the yard, remove the cover snakes rely on. Stacked firewood, rock piles, sheets of plywood on the ground, dense brush against the foundation, and overgrown vegetation all provide hiding spots. Keep firewood elevated and stored away from the house. Trim shrubs so there’s a clear gap between the plants and the exterior wall. Mow tall grass near the foundation. If you have outbuildings like sheds or decks that snakes can crawl under, close off access underneath with packed soil, bricks, or hardware cloth secured at the base.
Do Snake Repellents Actually Work?
Commercial snake repellents line the shelves at hardware stores, typically containing combinations of cinnamon oil, clove oil, cedar oil, sulfur, or naphthalene (the chemical in mothballs). The theory is that strong odors irritate snakes and drive them away. In practice, evidence that these products reliably keep snakes out of a defined area is weak. Snakes do react to noxious smells, but granular repellents applied around a foundation wash away in rain, break down in sunlight, and leave gaps a snake can simply go around.
Mothballs are one of the most common folk remedies, but naphthalene is toxic to pets and children, and using mothballs outdoors is actually a violation of their EPA label instructions. Ultrasonic electronic repellents, which claim to emit high-frequency sound waves, have similarly thin evidence behind them. Your time and money are far better spent sealing entry points and managing rodent populations. Those two steps address the root cause rather than trying to mask it with scent.
When You Need Professional Help
If you see a snake you believe is venomous, don’t attempt removal yourself. Call a licensed wildlife removal service or your state wildlife agency’s hotline. Most local animal control departments have shifted away from responding to wildlife calls, so a permitted private trapper is usually the right contact. Your state fish and wildlife commission maintains a list of licensed operators, and many respond the same day.
Professional help also makes sense if snakes keep showing up. Repeat visits suggest an active entry point you haven’t found or a significant rodent population drawing them in. A wildlife professional can do a full exclusion inspection, identify the gaps, and seal them with materials rated to last. Some pest control companies offer combined rodent and snake exclusion packages that tackle both problems at once.