Single mom's dream home becomes nightmare after hundreds of snakes discovered



OAK PARK HEIGHTS, Minn. -- A single mom's dream house has turned into a nightmare -- all because of snakes.

Angie Whitley is a nurse who spent years renting a townhouse in order to save enough money for a down payment and a new start. A split-level home in a Minnesota neighborhood seemed like the perfect place.

Several walk-throughs and a home inspection didn't find any trouble, but 45 minutes after closing on the home trouble slithered in.

"Brought my first sort of box down to my bedroom and I found a snake," Whitley told WCCO. "One quickly turned into 3,4,5. Today, it's six months later. Now I'm about 95 snakes that I've found inside my house."

That's 95 inside the home and a few hundred more outside.

Whitley now knows a garter snake den is somewhere under her property which sits near a marsh -- a perfect location for a reptile attracted to heat and to each other.

She's spent more than $13,000 trying to rid her family of the problem by ripping up her finished basement to tightly seal any potential cracks.

"If you can fit a pencil through they can fit through."

Whitley also had 40 gallons of water pumped from a large hole she found in the foundation.

"We really thought that that was the problem," said Whitley.

Still the spring brought the snakes back. Adam's Pest Control has now donated their services in an effort to locate the snake den.

Whitley is now forced to sleep upstairs on the couch, and out of the basement.

She has hired a lawyer and will likely enter arbitration with the home's previous owners regarding the snakes. The arbitrator will determine if fraud occurred during the home sale and who covers the costs.

The previous owners have not commented on the snake issue, according to WCCO.