Tag Archives: exotic pets

"Checkout Time for Smelly, Slithery Guests"

“Exotic Snakes Wear Out Their Welcome at Va. Motel”

Fairfax City police said they found 17 exotic snakes, 12 of them venomous, inside Room 11 of the Hy-Way Motel near Fairfax Circle on Thursday night after the motel’s management alerted them to a foul odor. The snakes took up residence at the Hy-Way on Sunday and were not detected by the housekeeping staff because they were concealed in luggage, police said.

Two of the smaller snakes, possibly future meals for their larger brethren, passed away during their vacation at the Hy-Way, police said, creating the telltale odor that led to their sudden eviction yesterday.

Police said the reptiles might belong to an Arlington County man who proudly kept as many as 100 exotic snakes in his home until county authorities recently moved against him.

The snakes did not endear him to the neighbors, who occasionally came across the random Mexican lancehead rattlesnake rambling about the ‘hood. So in May, Arlington passed an ordinance banning venomous snakes and other poisonous reptiles.

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An animal control officer and two snake experts visited the Hy-Way yesterday to catalogue the snakes and oversee their removal to an exotic-animal zoo in central Virginia, police said. The breeds included African puff adders, cottonmouths, rhinoceros vipers, albino cottonmouths, speckled rattlesnakes and a black-headed python, police said.

That slithering sound you may have just heard was my skin actually crawling so much when I read the story that I believe it crawled off my body and is hiding under the couch. Hopefully it’s alone under there.