4-Foot Snake Found Living in Walls of Long Island Home

Several months went by before a couple who moved into a Glen Cove home discovered their unexpected house mate: a 4-foot-long California kingsnake. 

Lauren and Eric Feinstein moved to Long Island from Boston with their two dogs in November, but they don’t plan to live in the rented home much longer since discovering the snake last week.

Lauren noticed her golden retriever was acting strange on the afternoon of April 18.

“My dog just kept going over and sniffing the corner of the room,” she said. “I soon saw the tail of a snake disappearing into the heat baseboards.”

Lauren did the next logical thing any person would do after discovering a snake in their home. She freaked out.

But at this point, she still thought it was a small milk snake since their home is next to Garvies Point Preserve. It seemed fairly possible a snake living in the woods somehow slithered its way into their home.

Lauren first called the police, who said they don’t handle calls for snakes. She then contacted several exterminators, who said they could not help her.

When Eric came home, they found the snake in the same spot, in the corner of the room. Eric corralled the snake into a recycling bin using a bent curtain rod.

They released the snake into their backyard, and it slithered through the fence into a giant leaf pile, never to be seen again.

Upon researching different types of snakes, Lauren eventually realized the reptile was not a milk snake, but a California kingsnake.

“I just knew it had to be the previous tenant’s snake,” she said.

The Feinsteins contacted their landlord, who put them in contact with the previous tenant. The man told them he had a pet California kingsnake that escaped over a year ago. The man thought the snake had died or gotten outside, but the pet had been living in the walls of the home this entire time.

“I felt so bad after learning it was someone’s pet,” Lauren said. “We really thought it was a milk snake at first.”

Lauren and Eric have gone into the woods looking for the snake, but they haven’t found it.

The Feinsteins are in contact with herpetology specialists to help locate the snake. They say they will also look into contacting the SPCA. California kingsnakes are nonvenomous snakes that are known to be expert hunters, according to Reptile Magazine. They eat rodents, lizards, birds, bird eggs and even other snakes.

There were no obvious signs a snake was living in their home for the past year, Lauren said. “After the snake was gone, I went around looking in the heat registers and closets and couldn’t find any snake skin.”

The couple is now thinking they might have a mouse problem.

Mouse problem or not, they don’t plan to stay in this home much longer. “[Finding the snake] was unsettling for us,” Lauren said. “It makes me want to move.”

But before they choose a new home to live in, they’re making sure the previous owners didn’t own any pet snakes.