January 1, “This is Crazy!”: Arizona Man Discovers 20 Rattlesnakes in Garage

In a scene straight out of many homeowners’ worst nightmares, a man in Mesa, Arizona, recently discovered he was sharing his garage not with the three rattlesnakes he initially thought, but with a whopping 20 rattlers.

The motley crew included five adult western diamondback rattlesnakes, 15 babies, and – adding to the surprise – one of these adults was pregnant.

When the homeowner stumbled upon the congregation of snakes, he promptly called the specialists from Rattlesnake Solutions. Marissa Maki, the snake wrangler who arrived at the scene, was taken aback by the scale of the situation.

Capturing her astonishment, she remarked, “That is a lot of snakes. I’m not going to lie. This is crazy,” in a YouTube video the company recorded during the incident.

The western diamondback rattlesnakes, easily identifiable by their triangular-shaped heads, are native to the Southwest. Although their venom is deemed less potent than many other rattlesnake species, they’re not creatures one should handle lightly.

With a practiced hand, Maki used tongs to carefully pick up each snake. She then safely placed them into large plastic buckets. In a move ensuring both the safety of the community and the snakes, the rattlers were then relocated to their natural habitat in a desert area.

The company’s owner, Bryan Hughes, expressed his astonishment at the record-breaking situation. “This is our record for the most rattlesnakes caught in one call!”

Indeed, this incident stands out even more when considering the evidence that suggests the garage may have hosted many more snakes in the past.

Hughes elaborated on this, revealing that numerous shed skins were discovered in the garage, hinting that the space could have been home to as many as 40 rattlesnakes at one time. As he put it, “We’ll never know how many rattlesnakes have come and gone over time.”

This isn’t the first time Rattlesnake Solutions has made the news. Back in July, they garnered attention when they adeptly removed a non-venomous coachwhip snake from a Tucson home.

The particularly dramatic video of the event highlighted the snake being taken from a toilet bowl, glaring and hissing directly into the camera lens.

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