There’s a mamba in my ceiling...

SUPPLIED Nick Evans with the mamba outside the shack in which it lived with its human occupants.

Nick Evans catches snakes as a part-time job. But this weekend he became part of a remarkable story – a number of people sharing a space with a ‘resident’ black mamba. This is his tale in his own words.
Durban - A few days ago I was called out by Chatsworth emergency services to investigate a sighting of a large snake in a shack in Chatsworth, just off Florence Nightingale Road. I went with some firemen at about 8.30pm.
We couldn’t locate the snake. The people living in and around the shack had said they had been seeing the snake regularly, basking on top of the shacks and in a nearby tree. I told them to call me if they saw it again.
Later, I got a call from a woman who lived in the shack. They could see the snake in the roof. I told them to watch it from a safe distance while I made my way there from Sherwood.
When I arrived, a young man had been watching it from the doorway. He said it had disappeared in the layers of asbestos on the roof. I walked in to where he saw it. Straight away I could hear something moving in the asbestos above me.
I tapped the asbestos with a broom, and the head of a black mamba appeared out of an opening. It went back in and tried to get out from another gap in the asbestos, but as soon as it saw me it slithered back into hiding.
Using the broom, I started making holes in the asbestos (with the owners’ permission). Eventually I could see the body of the mamba curled up through a hole. I poked it with the broom, and it started coming out of another hole. Using my grabstick, I safely secured it behind the head, to the joy of the locals. It felt great to finally get it. This snake had been sharing the shack with these people for ages.
Luckily, neither the people nor the snake had been harmed, and the snake has now been safely released into a nature reserve far from people.
I encouraged the children to come and touch the snake, with the head secured in my hand. Touching a snake can change someone’s perception of these reptiles.
It’s all about education. People always kill snakes and it’s time they understood them more and respected them.
* If you need to have a snake removed from your property, call Nick Evans at 072 809 5806.
Daily News