Snakes take over family home

2007-03-14 11:32

Pietermaritzburg - A Pietermaritzburg family has been forced to vacate their home in Azalea township after the house was invaded by snakes.

Bongekile Ndlela, 42, a mother of five children, said that she first discovered the snakes on Sunday inside her bedroom.

Since the discovery of the snakes she - with the help of the neighbour - has managed to kill five of them.

She claims, however, that there are still many more and bigger snakes still alive inside the house.

When The Witness visited the house on Tuesday, Ndlela and her youngest child were sitting outside. They say they are too scared to even go inside the house.

Snakes are a sign of bewitching

"We [the whole family] have vacated the house. We now sleep at our neighbours' homes," Ndlela said.

This is not a first time she has encountered a snake in her house. Her daughter Thembelihle, 11, was bitten by a snake in the house when she was only eight-months-old.

"Even now the leg in which she was bitten is still giving her problems. This is why we cannot take any chances this time - it's a case of once bitten, twice shy."

Ndlela, a staunch Christian who regards herself as "not a superstitious person", believes that the snakes were "sent to her house by someone".

Sazi Mhlongo, the president of the KwaZulu-Natal Traditional Healers Association, concurred with Ndlela, saying that snakes that are darker in colour are regarded as a bad omen when found inside one's house.

"If you find darker snakes in your house, those would have been sent by someone bewitching you. It is only snakes that are greenish in colour that are considered a good sign as they represent one's ancestors. If you find a greenish snake in your house it is probably your ancestor paying you a visit," Mhlongo said.

He added that Ndlela should take the snakes to a traditional healer who "would be able to reverse the spell and send the snakes back to whoever had sent them to her in the first place."

Peter Croeser, the chief education officer at the Natal Museum, identified the snakes found in Ndlela's house as the brown house snakes, known as Inkwakhwa in Zulu.

He said the snakes - which can bite when handled for the first time - are not aggressive and harmless to humans.

"They are important rodent predators, but are completely harmless to humans. They just have tiny backward-pointing teeth and no venom glands ... Many farmers live peacefully with them in their homes and outbuildings, aware of the benefit of these snakes as effective rodent pest controllers," Croeser said.

He added that the snakes feed mainly on rats and mice, but also bats and other small mammals. "It grasps its prey with sharp, recurved teeth and then constricts it before swallowing it whole. It can consume an entire rodent family in a single feeding session." The snakes are said to be common around houses in the province. "[These are] night active snakes common around houses, taking shelter during the day under rubble or in cavities in the wall or on top of walls, below the roof."

- The Witness