Honest ID · Safe removal · Sealed entry gaps

Snake Removal in South Jersey

Let's lower the temperature first: of the 22 snake species native to New Jersey, only two are venomous, and in the towns Acorn Wildlife serves you are overwhelmingly likely looking at a harmless garter, water, or rat snake. We remove snakes safely from basements, garages, and yards across Camden, Burlington, Gloucester, and Mercer counties, tell you honestly what you had, and seal the gaps that let it in.

Short answer: We identify the snake, remove it by hand or with snake tongs, and then fix the reason it was there: the foundation gaps it entered through and the rodents it was hunting. New Jersey has only two venomous species, timber rattlesnake and northern copperhead, and both are rare, protected, and almost never in a South Jersey basement.

Garter Snake

The one in every South Jersey garden: slim, usually with three light stripes down a dark body, 1 to 2 feet, harmless, and eating your slugs and worms.

Eastern Rat Snake

The big black one that startles people: up to 5 feet or more, a strong climber found in barns, attics, and trees. Harmless, and death on rodents.

Northern Water Snake

Chunky, dark, blotched, always near creeks and ponds. Aggressive-looking and constantly mistaken for a cottonmouth. New Jersey has no cottonmouths.

The Venomous Two

Timber rattlesnake (Pine Barrens and northern ridges) and northern copperhead (rocky northern NJ, very rare this far south). Both protected. If you truly suspect one, keep pets and kids back and call us.

A Snake in the House Is a Message About Mice

This is the honest part most snake pages skip. Remove the snake and seal nothing, and you keep the mice. Remove the snake, seal the foundation gaps, and address the rodents, and you have fixed all three problems in the right order. It is also why snake repellent products disappoint: university extension testing has repeatedly found the sulfur and naphthalene granules ineffective, and none of them do anything about the gap or the mice. If a snake keeps showing up, something about the building is inviting it.

Sealing Snakes Out for Good

A snake needs surprisingly little: a gap under a door, a gap in the sill plate, a cracked crawl space vent. We seal at the same standard we use for mice, because a home sealed to mouse standard is sealed to snake standard automatically. The work carries the Acorn Seal-Tight Warranty: if animals get back in through a repair we made, we come back at no charge.

✓  Sill plate and foundation cracks sealed with mortar and steel-backed sealant

✓  Crawl space vents rebuilt in hardware cloth

✓  Garage and basement door gaps closed with sweeps

✓  Habitat notes in your report: wood piles, tall edge grass, and bird-feeder spill that feed the rodents that feed the snakes

Methods live on the foundation and crawl space page and our wildlife exclusion page. Seeing signs in the basement? Start at wildlife in basements and crawl spaces, and if mice are part of the story, mouse control is the companion fix.