3-foot rattlesnake startles woman as she enters darkened bathroom of Arizona home
Hearing a rattling sound in your bathroom at night is bad, but things got worse after an Arizona woman switched on the light to see a rattlesnake at her feet.
She didn’t think to close the door before running (who would?), allowing the 3-foot snake to escape into the spacious bedroom of her Mesa, Arizona, home.
The pit viper was expertly hidden amid pillows, blankets and boxes of clothes when rattlesnake catcher Marissa Maki of Rattlesnake Solutions came to the family’s rescue. Rattlesnake Solutions posted video of the fall incident March 5 on Facebook.
“The mom and her adult son went out to dinner and when they got home, they noticed their front door was open,” Maki told McClatchy News.
“They hadn’t latched the door, so it had swung open with the wind. The lady had to go to the bathroom so she walked in, lights still off. When she stepped into the bathroom, she heard a rattle. Unsure of what it was, she flipped the lights on and saw the rattlesnake right there on her bathroom floor.”
This was around 10 p.m. on a Thursday. Maki says she arrived 30 minutes later to find the woman had “barricaded” the snake into her bedroom, “stuffing blankets and pillows under the crack of the door so nothing could come out.”
That wasn’t a bad idea.
Venomous Western diamondback rattlesnakes are masters of getting into and out of tight spaces, experts say. They grow to 5 feet and live 20 years, according to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
Their venom is rarely fatal, but is dangerous due to “a whole cocktail of damaging chemicals” that can cause internal bleeding and deteriorate the walls of veins and arteries, the University of California-Santa Barbara reports. Bite victims often need hospitalization.
“We get a lot of calls saying people have rattlesnakes in there homes, but most always it’s some kind of harmless snake. So I didn’t fully believe it was a rattlesnake,” Maki said, noting the family had moved to Arizona from Arkansas just a week earlier.
After a five-minute search of the bathroom, closet and bedroom, Maki says she found the snake between pillows. However, it quickly escaped under a bedside table.
“When I grabbed it with a pair of tongs, that’s when it started to rattle. They (mother and son) thought it was really cool,” Maki said. “They got a nice Arizona welcome.”
Maki’s expert catch was captured on video, which Rattlesnake Solutions shared with a tongue-in-cheek note: “Western Diamondback Rattlesnake hanging out under a bed. Sleep tight!” Comments on the video ranged from “OMG” to “For sale. Take all offers.”
Rattlesnake Solutions releases all captured snakes, including rattlesnakes, back into the wild. Maki reports she took the snake “to some suitable desert nearby” and placed it in a rodent hole for shelter.
It marks the fourth time in three years she has found a rattlesnake inside of a home, including one incident involving a kitchen pantry, she says.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 11:05 AM with the headline "3-foot rattlesnake startles woman as she enters darkened bathroom of Arizona home."