Don't Kill The House Snake!

Gary and Matt were on item #7 ("Clean out the bloody tool room!!") of the Things You Blokes Need To Do List when they discovered a bright yellow and black striped snake hiding (lurking?) under some motorcycle parts. Amid the yelling and excitement (terror?) the snake quietly slithered off under one of the shelves. "How are we going to kill it? Get the shovel! What about a trap?" I came in and had a look.

It's only 30 cm long, not a man-eating anaconda as you might have thought from the carry-on, and I ordered them to leave the poor thing alone while I googled it. Banded coastal snake, "mildly venomous", whatever that means ("mildly dead"?), and it's probably doing a really good job catching the mice, which have been disappearing. So we've decided to let it be The House Snake, as long as it doesn't actually come into the house and stays in the tool room. It's a bit inconvenient that it happens to be the same bright yellow as many of our tool handles...