hi, i'm jim harmon with california pest managementhere in sunny southern california. we're going to talk a little bit about how do you keepsnakes away from your house. now in southern california, a lot of our snake issues aregoing to be predatory snakes, they're going after crickets, smaller insects and also goingafter rodents. so the first thing is keep the rats and mice out and away from your houseand off your property whenever possible. in
how to prevent snakes from entering home, other words, limit food sources, engage agood pest control company to do a good preventative program for you. eliminate the food sourceyou won't have the problem. second, habitat. this right here behind us is a wonderful habitat.the snakes can get inside and have a nice place to hide and stay away from everybody.they like a nice warm spot after they've eaten,
that way they can digest their food. a lotof this overgrowth we see here on this hedge, that's great for snakes because they havelots of places to hide. this needs to be trimmed back and thinned and kept in good shape. thenext area we got to be concerned about it, these tall berries, again, keep them cleanedup, especially around the base of them, but when you go into the pool areas, everybodyhas a pool also has all their pool equipment. that is a neglected area. these are all quietzones. not only can rats and mice develop in there but snakes love them. ok now oneof the other areas, we have a nice garage here and a tool shed next to it. we don'tnormally go into these everyday, usually on the weekends but you can see we've got littlecracks and holes in the corners and a lot
of times you might even have this left open.next to it i've also got a lot of pots stored. now these pots when you have them all storedand jumbled over, that's a great place for the snakes to hide too. so we have a lot ofhiding spots for them and we really need to make sure that they don't have any place togo. that needs to be cleaned up and sealed up. and these ponds especially above ground,there's a lot of areas around it for a snake
to hide. now unfortunately this particularaquascape, this little pond here, is right next to the back door. so if you happen tocome out to your backyard and you leave the door a little bit open, the snake's righthere, they can scoot straight on inside and they feel the cold air, they're going to goon in and hide.
