More than 100 snakes found in Saskatchewan home

Friday, October 24, 2014, 7:28 PM - It's like something out of a horror film, except this is real life. More than 100 snakes recently took up sanctuary in a family home near Regina. Experts say it's a common occurrence this time of year, as snakes try to seek shelter from the cold.

Megan Lawrence of the Salthaven West Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre told the CBC that she recently received a call from a family about garter snakes in their basement.

"As they investigated further they found a lot more," she told the news agency.

"And then they started finding them in other areas of the house, like kitchens and bedrooms. So they decided then it wasn't a good idea to have them there anymore."

Lawrence says the bulk of the snakes were discovered in "tight spaces", like cracks in the walls.

They weren't being shy, either.

Lawrence says she saw them slithering around the house, settling in for winter hibernation. Because of this, they were moving slowly -- allowing Lawrence and her partner to pick many of them up by hand.

RELATED: The bee wars

They were separated into boxes by size and counted.

Apparently, the largest snake was almost a metre long.

"We know there's more down there, they're just hiding," Lawrence told the CBC.

"[The family is] going to keep trying to catch them and get them out of there. They don't want to harm them and they know that with winter coming it's important to not put them outside unless they have an alternate place to hibernate." 

While it is common for snakes to move into houses as the weather cools down, experts say its "rare" for more than 100 to show up at one time.

If you find a snake in your home, contact a professional for humane removal. Do not harm the snake -- after all, they're just doing what snakes do.