Everyone deserves a home.
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly four years since we purchased a house deep in the Japanese countryside for just one million yen (US$9,100 at the time). Needless to say, it’s a fixer-upper and we’re still in the process of making it a livable dwelling… livable for humans at least.
We’ve seen more than a few forms of wildlife stop by, and most recently, our editor Go Hatori was greeted by a rather large snake.
Generally, when you see snakes in pet stores or zoos, they’re just sitting around doing nothing. But this one was quite actively slithering around until it eventually settled on some beams in the ceiling.
Go knew nothing about snakes and had no idea what kind this was. For all he knew it could have been the most poisonous snake in all of Japan, so he did the only sensible thing he could and ran away back to Tokyo.
Afterward, he posted a video of the snake, which he had since named “Ao-chan,” onto social media. There, many people identified it as a Japanese rat snake, along with some rather unhelpful comments of “everyone knows that.” He also learned that they were non-venomous and are even considered guardian deities as they quietly live in attics and eat pests like rats and insects.
That’s when it dawned on Go that this was all his fault. Two years ago, he ripped out every ceiling on the second floor, thus removing the attic from the entire house. When he did it, he also noticed remnants of an animal having lived there.
When Go found Ao-chan, she seemed disoriented, and now it all made sense. He had unknowingly destroyed Ao-chan’s home, from which she protected the entire house with dignity and grace.
He decided to make things right and set out to make a new home for her. The biggest problem was that the entire house no longer had an attic, so he would have to set up a makeshift one for now that would hopefully give Ao-chan the privacy she needed.
The best spot was a closet in a room on the second floor.
The ceiling of that was also torn off, but he purchased a wooden board that would fit perfectly on top of it.
It didn’t even need any special work done. All he had to do was slide it into place and let gravity do all the work.
The grain looked nice from the inside too, which was a pleasant surprise.
However, as far as attics go, it wasn’t much.
Ao-chan would need more, but Go had checked online and learned how to make a little snake house from a flowerpot.
All he had to do was knock a few holes into it for the snake to move in and out of.
Unfortunately, a hammer isn’t always the best tool for precision work, and he ended up cracking the entire pot in half with one blow.
His next hit didn’t go so well either, and he was left with a pile of earthenware on the floor.
Mistakes are why pencils have erasers and toolboxes have glue, so Go got to work piecing back together the pot, minus the holes he had initially intended to create.
In the end, it looked rather good and very suitable for Ao-chan to curl up in and take it easy for a while.
Go then placed the house into the attic, where he hoped she would find it.
Ao-chan wasn’t around that time. She could have been hiding somewhere, but that was unlikely since her hiding place was destroyed. Maybe she just went out hunting for the day.
She could have moved on to a new home, but somewhere deep inside, Go knew she’d be back.
After all, this is the Year of the Snake.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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