Dare to buy; house of snakes on sale!

LONDON - Buy it at your own risk as thousands of snakes slithering around on the ceilings and walls are waiting to welcome if anyone enters the “horrible” house in the US.

However, the agent trying to sell the five-bedroom house located in the eastern state of Idaho is hopeful because there are snake lovers in the world. The price is $66,000 less than its estimated market value, the Daily Mail reported.

Fed up with sudden invasions by serpents several times, its owners walked away last year, allowing the house to fall into foreclosure.

It was taken over by the lender, Chase Bank. Now Realty Quest associate broker Todd Davis has been searching for a buyer, slashing the price from the estimated value of $175,000 to $109,000.

“I guess I need a snake lover,” he was quoted as saying. “Or someone with multiple mongooses.”

The reptile occupants are believed to be common garter snakes, a type found throughout the US. They are not poisonous and are harmless to humans. But, according to a pest inspector, they are living in the house in thousands.

Davis said: “It’s not a problem, it’s an infestation. It’s been a horrible experience.”

Previous owners describe the terror of trying to sleep at night, never knowing when your bed could be invaded, in a YouTube video from as far back as 2006. The most recent owners, Benjamin and Amber Sessions, reenacted the snake takeover on a programme on Animal Planet, which was aired earlier this month.

Davis said the Sessions segment and the YouTube video by other owners are the only evidences he has of the reptiles in the now infamous “Idaho snake house”.

He said he has no reason to disbelieve the accounts of hundreds of snakes sandwiched between the house and its exterior siding and piles of the reptiles in the crawlspace.

“I think the snakes got into a spot and decided to make it their home, now they’ve invited all their friends,” he said.

Joe Collins, director of the Center for North American Herpetology in Lawrence, Kansas, said it is likely that the house was built on a snake den site.

“Snakes have a great deal of fidelity to the den site,” he said. “They’re born near there and the animals return each fall to den up and avoid the cold.”

The snakes are not likely to relocate, voluntarily or otherwise. Even if the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, which oversees reptiles in the state, agreed to dislodge the garters, some snakes will remain and reproduce, restarting the cycle, Collins said.