Durban - Part of a prayer room at a Reservoir Hills home had to be broken in order for a snake catcher to remove an unwelcome Mozambique spitting cobra.
Nick Evans said that, on Friday night, he was called to a home in Reservoir Hills for the cobra, which had been seen in a hole in the wall of a prayer room.
“I had hoped it would be a quick and easy catch. It wasn’t,” said Evans.
“When I arrived, I stuck my phone in the hole in the wall, on video mode, hoping to spot the snake. I heard it. Cobras have a distinctive, short hiss when they're grumpy.”
Evans said he could not see the snake on the camera.
The wall had tiles on it, but the homeowner had broken some of them. So they broke more and more tiles along the short wall, but could not find the snake.
“Eventually, we found a space towards the one end, where it clearly had been moving in. There were plenty of tracks in the sand. This space was a concrete and tiled structure inside the prayer room, basically serving as a table, to give you an idea,” Evans explained.
“I noticed a gap between a piece of asbestos and the short wall inside the prayer room, and I was sure it was there. But, the only way to get it was more destruction!”
“Unfortunately, this time, we had to break the nice, well laid, prayer room. I felt really bad, but the homeowner was adamant that we get this snake out. He was a contractor, so it was an easy fix for him, which made me feel less bad,” Evans continued.
He said he supposed no one would want to go into the room to pray and get spat on by a cobra. There were holes for the snake to enter the prayer room.
“He (the homeowner) started breaking it, and the cobra was exactly where we suspected it to be. I pulled it out with my tongs, and it spat furiously at my tongs, then at me. I quickly pinned it down,” explained Evans.
“I try to avoid that like the plague, by ‘necking’ them ASAP but, unfortunately, it just didn't work out this time,” added Evans.
Evans said the family was happy to see the back of the snake and he did not blame them.
He also thanked the homeowner for doing all the hard work.
Daily News