Neighbours freaking out about my under house python- Mr Hissy

[MrHissyLives]

I live on tropical northern Australia and have had a resident carpet python living under my house. My kids call him Mr Hissy. I’ve been here 15 years and have seen him about half a dozen times, usually sliding in or out between the slats that close off the under side of my house. Carpet pythons are famously zen and most Aussies are happy to have one in their shed as they won’t bother you and keep the rats sorted.

Anyhow, I heard dramatic screaming last evening and rushed out to see my terrified neighbour frozen in fear, looking over our fence as Mr Hissy went back in under my house. I explained he has been there forever and is harmless but she was having a proper freak out and shouting that she couldn’t sleep ever again knowing he was next door. I said that there would be dozens mores snakes in our tropical gardens that she had never seen and she had lived there for three years and clearly Mr Hissy had never bothered her. This did not help. Her husband arrived home and said his wife was terrified of snakes and Mr Hissy Had.To.Go. In fact, he would call his cousin to come and remove Mr Hissy. I said no. Mr Hissy was on my property and was welcome to stay. They gave me death stares and left.

I do understand that phobias are irrational but fuck me, Mr Hissy has never done anything to them. I’m certainly not letting some random cousin come and get Mr Hissy- he will either take him away and kill him or release him somewhere where he won’t survive. In fact pythons are a protected species and only authorised wildlife removalists can move them as they will know the release places where the snake will most likely survive.

I’ve always got on well with these neighbours up till this point. Should I tell them that if they pay for an authorised wildlife remover to come and get Mr Hissy, I will allow it? Would that be a reasonable compromise? I really don’t want Mr Hissy to go, but is it worth falling out with my neighbours over?

So YABU- let neighbours pay to remove Mr Hissy
YANBU- Mr Hissy stays

Of course Mr Hissy stays, but I do hope those quivering about Australia are aware they have huge (Burmese) pythons in that holiday hotspot, Florida?

They used to be just in the southern tip, but have now made it to Orlando too

Just saying ...

I'm sorry, but I'm still struggling to get past the fact that you (and obviously your neighbour) live in Oz, where multiple reptiles, arachnids, sea creatures, and insects can kill and seriously injure a person - and this woman is freaking out over a non venomous and famously docile snake. This has to be the weirdest thing I've ever read!

Humane removal, at their cost, is probably what I'd settle on if she's got a genuine phobia and can't sleep at night. Poor Mr Hissy, though!

We (well, my 13yo ds) have a pet ball python, so not quite as big as a carpet python, but he's totally chill. I love pythons.

Yeah I've never seen one, and spent very much time outside all over the UK. I've seen slow worms and grass snakes though.

My mate posted some pictures from their walk recently on Facebook and they saw 4 on one walk!

I read about that. The gators and the pythons are fighting it out for top spot in the Florida pecking order.

Another one here for Team Mr Hissy. Like a PP said, if someone removes him, another one will take his place.

Mr Hissy over Roland Ratticus ANY day!

I live in the suburbs of Peterborough, near (man made) lakes and a (natural) nature reserve. There have been multiple reports of adders locally, and I've actually gone (carefully) looking for them with my snake-mad son. Never been lucky enough to see one, unfortunately.

Have you never seen Jungle Book?

Thank you. A trip to the stunning Welsh coast is now on the list!

Also the neighbour needs to move to a different country....

FFS its Australia! Does she realise that the place is full of poisonous things?

Oh my good God…if ever I needed confirmation that Australia (or Florida!) is not the place for me, this post is it. Don’t think I’ll sleep tonight just having read it! My son’s friend hosted a petting zoo party up the road from us which included a visiting python and I had to leave the street until I knew it had safely gone…felt a bit sick going to their house for a while afterwards knowing it had been there.

My parents are in rural Victoria. A few years back my dad was sitting on the patio with his legs up on another chair and his (now sadly late) Airedale sitting beside him. Dad noticed Sawyer (Airedale) freeze and he looked down to see a red bellied black snake slithering underneath his chair, past Sawyer's front paws and then slowly slither away. dad said he and Sawyer just were stock still and when the snake had slithered off they sort of looked at each other in a mutual ; 'That was close' and then they relaxed and carried on sitting there.

Another story- my mother used to put her laundry out then keep the (wicker) laundry basket on the ground next to the line. One day she just pulled off all the dry laundry in a hurry and then brought the basket back in. later that night she was folding it and shook out a tea towel and an eastern brown snake (very deadly) tumbled out, rolled down her chest and landed on the floor in attack position. Thankfully a relatively near neighbour is a snake catcher so he came out within minutes (mother was still frozen to her spot) and he caught it. But both she and dad freaked out when he commented laconically; 'This is just a baby.... where do you think it's mother might be'.

Very true, but at least the gators are indigenous, whereas the jury's still out on whether the python invasion's the result of lost pets or some sort of unwise "introduction"

Hardly matters though; they're there now and not going anywhere, and while I happen to love the things they don't tend to feature much in "come to beautiful Florida" adverts

Strange, that

I saw my Mr Hissy-Swimmy right by the Trumpington Road in central Cambridge, for those who know it. I was... surprised.

I've just Googled Carpet Pythons and OMG they're so beautiful!

So, Mr-and Mrs-Nincompoo's willingly move to a tropical area where they KNOW snakes are around then they want you to get rid of gorgeous Mr Hissy? NO! DON'T let anyone take him away!

Stand your ground and tell them if they don't like him they should move to the Antarctic where's there's no snakes!

I'm absolutely petrified of 8-legged things, even just the little house ones, so I wouldn't move to the Amazon Rain Forest then moan to the villages about their giant ones ... !

Bloody hell, I've just made my own flesh crawl ...!

This is a glorious thread and I am 100% team Hissy.

However I too would like a diagram (similar to a parking diagram please and thank you) just to make it an absolutely top-tier thread.

I had a good laugh at your post @Caerulea 😀

(I am South African)

I think snakes are pretty endearing with their ambitious eating manoeuvres 😁
You have to admire an animal that just goes for it, regardless of jaw/stomach restraints and high possibility of a poor outcome (thinking of the snake that exploded after chomping down on an alligator)...

Bit like food shopping when you haven't eaten all day. Bad idea 😬

"Definitely a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock."

I'm stealing this 😂

As I live in deepest Yorkshire this is beyond my realms of understanding Australian wildlife.
What I do know is that I would prefer having Mr Hissy living under my house than rats. ((( shudder)))

SA is spectacular for its nature and wildlife but I think I'd age rapidly if living there with the unexpected visitors popping up! Staying in a property near Addo last year and noticed a cute frog ornament in the shower room -you know where this is going- and only realised it wasn't when it blinked at me! He was safely returned to the pond area outside using a large wine glass.

The mother of all cockroach type things, on steroids, then appeared in same shower 😱. Covered it with the large wine glass but in the few seconds it took to find something to slide underneath the glass it was butting it so hard it had moved the glass along about six inches!! I've never laughed and screamed with fear at the same time before!

Yeah, you don’t see a lot of giant pythons in the ads promoting Disney and key lime pie.

An interesting fact I learnt recently about Florida is that it’s prone to massive sink hole collapses. To do with the underlying rock and acid erosion, apparently.

You don’t see that in the ads either: “come to Florida and have the ground swallow you up”.

Team Hissy

I once stopped in rural South Africa to take a photo and trod on a snake. I didn't stop to identify it - 100m medals have been won in longer times than it took me to get back to the car.

Oh and talking of rats .....

At 10 am yesterday, I baited a trap in my compost bin

At 4pm, I checked it to find half a rat - the rest had already been eaten.

Slightly worried about who did that ....

There's also the potential to elevate the thread with the inclusion of a travelling wheelie bin, perhaps parked in the wrong location.
Nobody can resist the lure of a wheelie bin/parking/fully diagrammed-up thread...👀