Big mistake! The problems they had noticed went much deeper. The weak basement doorway translated into unfortified walls leading downstairs. The bouncy bathroom floor had been wet under the linoleum and about three inches up two of the walls. The flickering light switches warned them of the outdated wiring that had to be replaced. Ultimately, their $10,000 savings only helped to give them a bit of consolation when they paid $27,000 for all of the remodeling! The five-bedroom house sat on pastoral acreage in the Canadian countryside. At less than $380,000, it seemed a steal. But it wasn’t a bargain. Ben and Amber soon realized the dream home they had purchased for their growing family was infested with hundreds of garter snakes. Throngs of reptiles crawled beneath the outer walls. The young couple said they would lie awake and listen to slithering inside the walls at night. It was like living in a horror movie. The home was most likely built on a winter snake den, or hibernaculum, where the reptiles gather in large numbers to hibernate. In the spring and summer, the snakes fan out across southeast Idaho, but they return to the den as the days get shorter and cooler. At the height of the infestation, the home buyer said he killed 42 snakes in one day before he decided he couldn’t do it anymore. He waged war against the snakes, and “they won.” Buyers had little recourse when they decided to flee the home. They had signed a document, noting the snake infestation. They said their agent had assured them that the snakes were just a story “invented” by the previous owners to leave their mortgage
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