Snake Catcher Releases Deadly Reptile Back Into House After Family Refuses To Pay
Malorie Thompson
If you live in Australia, you're probably used to hearing about snakes and other critters sneaking into people's homes. The country is notorious for having deadly reptiles and those reptiles keep people like snake catchers in business.
Colin Shoemark of Lake Macquarie Snake Catcher has been working in pest control for nearly a decade and he's quite familiar with poisonous and deadly snakes since he has to remove them from people's home on a regular basis.
Photo: It's not a job for the faint of heart, but it's something Colin is proud of and does great work at. As you can imagine, working in such a unique filed of work has to come with a host of unusual stories, but the one that may take the cake is when Colin actually released a massive, deadly snake back into a client's house!
In an interview on the Cancel Me Now podcast, Colin revealed an interesting situation he encountered at a client's house with host Isaac Butterfield.
As it turns out, the client called Colin to catch a deadly snake from his home but then he didn't want to pay for the service.
Photo: Colin recalled in the interview:
"I caught a six-foot red belly in his kitchen and I put it in the bag, and then he started, 'This should be free, the government should pay for that, the council should pay for that, I'm not paying you.'"
According to the Australian Museum, the red-bellied black snakes are one of the most commonly encountered snakes on the east coast of Australia.
The museum notes that the snake isn't particularly aggressive, but it will lash out if it feels cornered. They write: "Further harassment will cause the snake to lash out and deliver a rapid (but often clumsy) bite, and sometimes they may hang on and chew savagely. The venom has predominantly anticoagulant and myotoxic effects, and symptoms of envenomation include bleeding and/or swelling at the bite site, nausea, vomiting, headache, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, sweating, local or general muscle pain and weakness, and red-brown urine..."
Photo: Flickr/Jack Heywood
The snake's bite can result in hospitalization and death, though general pain and discomfort are far more common.
You'd think the homeowner would want to do anything to avoid the snake being in his home, but that just wasn't so.
Colin continued his story saying that when he realized the homeowner wasn't paying up, he decided to undo the work he'd started. He said, "I let the snake out, it started slithering past my feet, he was like 'What are you doing?, I was like 'Mate, if you're not gonna pay me, I'm gonna leave.' He goes, 'I'm gonna call the police.' Well, call the f**king police."
Photo: In the end, the homeowner learned his lesson and paid up so Colin would re-catch the massive snake and remove it. Hopefully it was a hard lesson learned for him!
You can listen to the full podcast episode below:
