I once lived with someone who was a snake nut and he once rescued a large rat snake (also called a blacksnake) from a junk car that was being towed away. We saw it sliding away from the vehicle as it was being attached to the tow truck, and my roomie grabbed him. He was very docile, and had no issue with being held. Within about 15 minutes, my good friend's four year old was carrying him around on his shoulders, and let me tell you, this snake was in heaven. He sat there for at least an hour and never moved except to look around. So, after this, my roomie decided to bring him in and keep him. It was about a month later that he 'rescued' another one who was much smaller. This one was also very docile and liked to hang out with people. So, we ended up with two rat snakes. The thing is, they were too adept at getting out of the makeshift space he made for them, so we finally just let them roam around the house. This turned out to be a decent compromise, because we suddenly realized there were no mice, no bugs, no nothing in our house. (We lived way out in the country, BTW.) The only thing you had to remember to do was check the bed before you got on it, as one or both might be under the covers. Plus, once word got round that there were snakes roaming free at our place, we felt pretty safe from any unwelcome visitors. Oh... their names were Arthur (big one) and Simon. My friend's kid used to love to come visit so he could hang out with his slithery friend. And, Arthur always seemed to recognize him. When that boy would go over to the aquarium, or where ever Arthur was, and picked him up, that snake would immediately climb to the boy's shoulders and get into his usual 'perch'.
Having said all this, you are correct in what you say. Those two were very much exceptions to the rule of snakes, and my old roomie used to allow that he did screw with their lives by taking them, but I have to say that once we let them roam, they had every opportunity to leave and never come back (trust me, that old farm house was not 'tight' by any means), but they were always around. (We marked them with some kids paints so we could recognize them in case other snakes showed up. We had already had a few pop up in our first year there, but never happened again, thanks to Arthur and Simon. Heh.)
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No more roaches in my apartment.
