<\/p>\n
Tyler and Lauren Bouldin bought their dream home only to discover a huge snake infestation. Picture: Instagram\/@theforgehouse<\/p>\n
Imagine you search for years for your dream home and come across a beautiful 1830s stone house that was perfect.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only one small problem: a snake infestation. And not just a few snakes, but hundreds.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what happened to Tyler and Lauren Bouldin, who purchased a property at Pine Grove in rural Pennsylvania, a small town of around 2,000 people.<\/p>\n
The Bouldins bought the 6,000-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bathroom house at auction in 2020 for $460,000 (AUD $657,000). The property had sat fallow and unoccupied for more than a decade before the Bouldins and their two children moved in.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s apparently when the snakes took up residence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we bought our house, we didn\u2019t realise that we were also buying a large population of snakes,\u201d Tyler joked in one video.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The home is in a rural area but the couple were shocked at the sheer number of snakes. Picture: Instagram\/@theforgehouse<\/p>\n
The snakes, as seen on the couple\u2019s TikTok account, appear largely unbothered by their human neighbours. The Bouldins have caught them slithering up the side of the house, slowly meandering across the front steps of the home, and running roughshod around the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you find yourself in this situation, the right response is not to burn the entire property to the ground as so many people have suggested,\u201d Tyler said.<\/p>\n
Instead, the couple has gone about systematically filling in cracks in their home\u2019s foundation and pulling up stumps on the property that the snakes like to nest in. Tyler also invested in a \u201csnake grabber\u201d to help him catch snakes on the fly in his yard and remove them to the woods.<\/p>\n
The Bouldins originally attempted to let nature manage itself by leaving the non-venomous black snakes largely alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time we post a snake video, people say, \u2018Oh, don\u2019t worry about the black snakes. Don\u2019t do anything with them.\u2019 And that\u2019s been our policy,\u201d Tyler said in a 2023 TikTok. The black snakes, said Tyler, are annoying, but serve a purpose: They kept the more venomous Copperheads and timber rattlesnakes at bay.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They even discovered snakes climbing the walls. Picture: Instagram\/@theforgehouse<\/p>\n
Or at least that\u2019s what he thought. He soon discovered that the various snake species were nesting together.<\/p>\n
So the family took a different tack, looking to close up any holes in the property that the snakes were slithering into and doing their best to remove food sources \u2014 they\u2019ve adopted two cats to help control the rodent population.<\/p>\n
Tyler also invested in a \u201csnake grabber\u201d to help him catch snakes on the fly in his yard and remove them to the woods.<\/p>\n
Given that snakes love to nest in rotting wood and overgrowth, \u201cWe spent whatever free time we had clearing the lawn, stone walls, gardens and woodland of debris, garbage piles, and overgrowth,\u201d Tyler told PEOPLE.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest changes they\u2019ve made to the property was removing an ancient in-ground pool that was a cozy home for water snakes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The couple remained positive despite snake-ageddon. Picture: Instagram\/@theforgehouse<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nowhere was free from the snakes. Picture: Instagram\/@theforgehouse<\/p>\n
\u201cWe removed our dangerous in-ground pool, restored the pond and installed filters and fountains, and closed up all of the holes in the house and barn, which created homes for mice, etc. We even planted mint around the structures, which naturally deters snakes,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
The snakes are evidently not keeping the Bouldins from continuing to put down roots. In 2025, in fact, the couple announced that Tyler\u2019s parents had bought the stone cottage just next door.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve found your property overrun by snakes, experts recommend first doing everything you can to make the property less inviting for them. That includes removing debris they might like to nest in and keeping the grass short.<\/p>\n
Experts also recommend removing their food sources \u2014 snakes feed on mice and other small rodents, so bringing an exterminator in to trap and remove rodents can also help,<\/p>\n
Finally, if all else fails, it may be worth hiring a wildlife removal expert who can safely trap and rehome large snake populations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tyler and Lauren Bouldin bought their dream home only to discover a huge snake infestation. Picture: Instagram\/@theforgehouse Imagine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-815531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}