If Walls Could Talk...

I was visiting some friends who are former clients this weekend. It was great to see their children who are growing up. They have two beautiful daughters who were rather young when we started looking for their new home. NOTE: Same family as in previous cat surgery story, I need to find them a new home for more great stories. Anyway, we found the perfect home. It was close enough to hospitals, both parents are doctors, the setting was very private and adjacent to a park, and it had an attached small home for guests. This was just too good to be true. The home was delightful in every way. It even had a three car attached garage, which is rare in an old home in Peoria, IL. Imagine this, we are viewing the home for the second time. The girls are choosing bedrooms. The parents are deciding whether or not to let their families know they have a guest house, and everyone is happy. As we are standing in the kitchen discussing price, I hear a blood curdling shriek from one of the young girls. Following by two shrieking girls. Oh my gosh, did they see a spider? Did they drop a vase? Was there a raccoon in the yard? We ran to the family room, which was probably an old sun porch converted into a four season room. There was small metal door which I had noticed earlier, but just presumed it was part of the exterior of the house prior to enclosing it. Well, my curious young buyers had decided to investigate. Every time I think I have seen it all after selling real estate since 1978, something new comes along. We ran into the room, by then the girls were outside, and looked into the opening. There was the biggest black snake I have ever seen. It was curling its way up a water pipe. This snake had to be 4 inches thick. Obviously , one of the doctors had a strong background in biology, he knew the snake species. I do not care how safe it is, it was the biggest, scariest snake I have ever seen. This snake would have needed an open door to get into this house. I do not think so, I think it was raised in the house. I was trying to decide if one huge black snake would be able to reproduce in these walls, but the thought of two or more of them was just too much. Note, the girls are still screaming "snake in the house". So, being the polite agent I am, I left a cordial note to the sellers to let them know they had a big snake. Normally I leave notes like, "light bulb is out in basement", the snake note was a first. So, the next morning the other agent called me. I presume she wants to apologize for scaring the children (what about ME) with the snake. No. She said the snake was taken care of with $1300 worth of extermination and it was no longer in the house. One thousand three hundred dollars to exterminate a snake. At that point, I was sure there was a colony of snakes (aka snake-pit). She wanted to know if they were going to make an offer! This is true! I could not believe it. How could they make an offer when their agent would not be able to go back through the house with them without body protection? The girls would not even get out of the car. What do exterminators do with very large snakes anyway?