The other day I heard Purrcy scrabbling in the corner between our bedroom & the laundry room, and then hissing. When I went over to see what was up his tail was all puffed up, as he confronted a new experience:
a milk snake!
( cut for snake pic )Purrcy was very excited, but wary--he clearly has a "snake instinct" that says this isn't normal prey, but something possibly dangerous. We weren't able to catch the snake, but we're pretty sure it went out the way it came in, it was pretty scared of us (& Purrcy).
Purrcy spent the next half week sniffing & searching for it everywhere, & also being v suspicious of all the cords & any long or snakelike toys. It's like his "snake instinct" was dormant & had to be activated.

The bad part about Our Inside Snek Adventure is that I mentioned it to the housecleaner ... who turns out to be *horribly* snake-phobic. So much that just knowing there'd been a snake in the house, she was too scared to come this week. We're blocking up the Snake Holes, hoping that helps, & she'll try to come back next week.
I'm not going to tell her that this is the 3rd *species* of snake we've seen close to the house, which is made of stone, 100 yrs old, on a stony NJ hillside (others are garter & black racer). Mr Dr Science & I love it! He in the Atlanta suburbs, I in Champaign, IL, we were the kids who caught snakes & brought them in for show & tell in elementary school.
Gloria, our housecleaner, grew up in Jamaica, but she's a city girl through and through. She's prob. too old for snake therapy, I hope this works.