Snake Infestation Chases Family Out of Home

»Want more news? Subscribe to the Annapolis Patch email newsletter.

An Annapolis couple spent $61,000 in a futile effort to rid their newly purchased dream home of a snake den before they moved out and filed a lawsuit against the real estate agent – also their next-door neighbor – who sold them the hissing house.

Experts told Jeff and Jody Brooks that snakes had established runs through the walls of the house and found snake feces on the walls. The bodies of adult and baby snakes were found in the house early on, then live snakes up to seven feet long began emerging from the walls.

Discovering the slithering infestation prompted the Brooks family to move out recently and file a $2 million lawsuit against real estate agent Barbara Van Horn, Champion Realty, Inc., and Van Horn’s mother, Joan Broseker, the previous owner of the troubled house, reports WUSA.

Jeff Brooks said he couldn’t feel safe with his family in the house; they said they had asked about pest inspection reports, and nothing was disclosed. The couple has a 4-year-old son and a 9-month-old daughter.

“I couldn’t come back here,” Jeff Brooks said.

“Just tell me that this snake would never have mistaken our four-month-old baby for a vermin and curled up in the crib with her,” added Jody Brooks.

Court documents allege that as temperatures climbed in April, rat snakes came out of hibernation in the house, particularly its unfinished basement. Among the snake sightings described in court papers:

• On April 3, their son found a 3-foot snake coming out of the house wall between the brick and the soffit.
• On April 11, Jeff Brooks found a 7-foot snake in the basement, called a pest control company that removed the snake and applied a deterrent to expel other snakes. An hour later, Brooks found and killed a 4-foot snake coming out of the basement’s woodwork.
• A few days later, the parents heard a snake slithering in the basement bedroom ceiling while their baby slept upstairs.

A snake inspector from Home Paramount urged the Brookses to have a contractor gut the basement so exterminators could assess the “snake highways” established in the house, court records say. Ultimately, snakes, snake nests and snake feces were found throughout all levels of the house and it was deemed uninhabitable and worthless.

The site has been a snake den for years, experts told the couple, and while the creatures are dormant in winter – including December when the Brookses bought and moved into the house – they are active in the warmer months. The lawsuit says there is no guarantee that demolishing the house and building a new home would keep snakes out of the site, which has likely been a hibernation spot since 1985.

Sale price of the house at 631 Truxton Road was $410,000.

»Screenshots of snakes, Jody Brooks, from WUSA

More from Patch:

• Officer Accused of Biting Man’s Testicles in Brawl
• Pope Francis Blesses Photo of Maryland Girls Killed in Mansion Fire
• Does VP Biden’s Tweet Top Blue Angel Pilot’s Epic Selfie?
• WOW House: $21M Buys Ballet Room, Guest House, 15 Riverview Acres
• First Female Blue Angel Comes Home to Entertain Family, Midshipmen
• ‘Greatest Man We Have Ever Known’ Midshipman Called by Teammates
• Abolitionist Harriet Tubman Wins Popular Vote to Be Face of $20 Bill

Snake Infestation Complaint