23/04/2025
Moth balls & other chemical “snake repellents” have never been proven to do anything to deter snakes. Mothballs are toxic to children, pets, ground water & any other wildlife that comes into contact with them. Not to mention they are also illegal to use outside.
How to Keep Snakes Away From Your House And Property
In this picture is a venomous copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix).
Snakes are incredibly beneficial for the ecosystem. They control the population of several pests, including mice, rats, cockroaches and other insects. However, many species are venomous, and some of these can be dangerous for humans and pets. As such, depending on where you live, it might be important to keep snakes out of your yard. Additionally, you might be concerned about keeping snakes away while hiking or trekking.
1. Keep your yard free of clutter. Snakes are ambush predators, meaning they like to attack their prey from dark hiding places. As such, clutter is essentially an open invitation to snakes, giving them perfect hiding spots. Piles of leaves, compost piles, straw mulch, wood chip mulch, stacks of firewood, and piles of cut grass are all comfortable places that snakes like to hide in, so these should be removed from your yard.
Instead of wood mulch, consider crushed stone. It’s not as comfortable or effective for snakes to hide in.
2. Avoid low-growing plants. Just like clutter, certain shrubs and other plants provide the perfect hiding spot for a neighborhood snake. Keeping your grass mowed is a good way to prevent snakes from slithering around your yard. Shrubs and packed gardens with thick plants will also attract snakes.
If you are very concerned about a potential snake problem, remove or thin these plants out. If you want to keep these plants, however, consider transplanting them to the far side of your yard, away from the foundation of your house.
3. Get rid of any possible source of food. Snakes will only hang around your yard if there’s something there they can eat. Depending on the species, this could mean a problem with large insects such as cockroaches and grasshoppers, or small mammals such as mice and rats.
Try laying traps or spraying repellents designed to keep these pests away from your house, and the snakes should stay away as well.
4. Patch up any holes. If you have spotted snakes in your yard and are worried about keeping them out of your house, the best thing you can do is locate and repair any holes in your property’s foundations, the garage, or screen doors. Carefully inspect these areas and if you notice any holes, no matter how small, patch them up immediately. Even holes as small as a quarter are large enough for certain types of garter snakes to squeeze through.
Beyond allowing access into your home, any holes or cracks in your building’s foundations provide great hiding places for snakes.
5. Put up snake-proof fencing. The effectiveness of snake proof fencing might depend on the type of snake you have in your area and how it commonly travels, but there are specialized types of fencing that have proved effective against many types of snakes. Snake-proof fencing usually follows three broad types: plastic sheeting, steel mesh or catch net fencing. No matter the construction, these fences should be flush to the ground and angled outwards. This prevents snakes from slithering under the fence or climbing over.
It might not be practical to fence your entire yard this way. Instead, consider fencing specific areas commonly frequented by children and pets.
You should consider putting up similar snake barriers around any buildings on your property elevated off the ground. This will keep snakes from hiding underneath.
6. Create vibrations. If you have spotted snakes in your garden or yard in the past, and suspect that a few might be hiding in there even now, run the lawn mower or tiller around the area before working in it. You do not want to push the mower or tiller through the area, because the idea is not to kill the snakes but simply to scare them off. The vibrations produced by these machines are usually enough to warn and frighten off many snakes, especially common garter snakes.
Note that this won’t keep snakes away permanently, but if you need to work in a garden, this can scare off snakes long enough to let you work.
