Imagine you search for years for your dream home and come across a\u00a0beautiful 1830s stone house\u00a0in rural\u00a0Pennsylvania. <\/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 in\u00a0Pine Grove, a small town of around 2,000 people in Central Pennsylvania, in 2020.<\/p>\n
The Bouldins bought the 6,000-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bathroom\u00a0house\u00a0at auction in 2020 for $460,000. <\/p>\n
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\u00a0snakes\u00a0took up residence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we bought our house, we didn\u2019t realize that we were also buying a large population of snakes,\u201d Tyler joked in one video.<\/p>\n
The snakes, as seen on the couple\u2019s TikTok account, appear largely unbothered by their human neighbors. <\/p>\n
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
The snakes, as seen on the couple\u2019s TikTok account, appear largely unbothered by their human neighbors.<\/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. <\/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
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
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\u00a02023 TikTok. <\/p>\n
The black snakes, said Tyler, are annoying, but serve a purpose: They kept the more venomous Copperheads and timber rattlesnakes at bay.<\/p>\n
Or at least that\u2019s what he thought. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014they\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
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. ouroldhouse\/tiktok<\/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\u00a0PEOPLE.<\/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
\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
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The snakes are evidently not keeping the Bouldins from continuing to put down roots. <\/p>\n
In 2025, in fact, the couple announced that Tyler\u2019s\u00a0parents had bought\u00a0the 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. <\/p>\n
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. ouroldhouse\/tiktok<\/p>\n
That includes removing debris they might like to nest in and keeping the grass short.<\/p>\n
Experts also recommend removing their food sources\u2014snakes 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":"Imagine you search for years for your dream home and come across a\u00a0beautiful 1830s stone house\u00a0in rural\u00a0Pennsylvania. There\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17603,28,30,29,1081,17604,106787],"class_list":["post-249678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-luxury-real-estate","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-real-estate","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-snakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}