Crime & Safety
Snakes on a Porch: Woman Captive in Home to Creeping Menace
Neither police officers nor animal control agents are able to salvage sanctity of woman's back yard after reptile takes up residence.
The Brookfield police vow to serve and protect – from whatever threats residents might perceive.
They deliver on that promise no matter how daunting the foe, even when it is a fearsome, cold-blooded reptile.
An abnormal fear of snakes is called ophidiophobia. We don't know if that's what's at work here, or just an unusual degree of skittishness about the slithering creatures.
At 10:14 a.m. Monday, a woman living in the 14200 block of Forest View Lane called police to report she there was a 2-foot-long black snake on her back porch, and she felt menaced by it.
Brookfield police agreed to call animal wildlife removal for her, and did, but they were told by the agency it was probably just a harmless garter snake, and by law they couldn’t bother it. If it were identified as a non-native species, they could remove it, but that seemed unlikely, police were told.
When officers got back to the caller, she said she had in the meantime positively ID’d the serpent as a common garter snake, and she downgraded its size to 1½ feet. She said it had crawled off the porch and under a set of Lannon stone steps, where it remained hidden, inaccessible and a continuing threat to her peace of mind.
She promised officers she would be keeping a close eye out to see whether the reptile leaves the area or continues to haunt her back yard.
Find out what's happening in Brookfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
