Derwent Traders

I live in Brunei and for Christmas my friends, Kaye and Ken Hinss, bought me two snake repellers.  They are working a treat!

Brunei is a little tropical sultanate on the island of Borneo, home to a variety of snakes – venomous and pythons – and these snakes are straying into residential areas as the jungle is felled.  I am an avid gardener and unwittingly had created the ideal home for a variety of snakes – lots of ground cover, a large gate closed to keep packs of dogs out, two well fed cats who are so satisfied that they just watch the snakes ripple past them, lots of frogs and the occasional bush rat, and now that our children have left home, a very peaceful environment.  For the last 5 years or so I’ve been seeing a velvety black snake who appears quite unafraid of me.  It has grown and multiplied so we have had the whole family living in the garden, well fed and happy.  I suppose it has been so comfortable for these snakes with no predators that they have become more outgoing and confident, so I started seeing them more often during the day time.  They were also often hanging around the back and front doors – almost inside!  It wasn’t until we surprised one of the adults one day and it quickly reared up in defence that we realised these snakes were cobras – the hood spread and the snake glared at us.  A snake handler here tells me they are most likely the Sumatran Black cobra, which can also spit.  Alarm bells sounded – there are no guarantees that the hospital here has the anti-venine on hand and the bite is extremely painful and, of course, lethal.  These cobras are highly venomous from the day they are born.

So, it was panic stations to try and do something about what had become a problem.   Behind our house is a swampy area and a creek and the owner just can’t keep up with the grass cutting, so I think that is really our problem – it’s all about the food chain. The fire brigade here has snake handlers and they routinely capture and then release the snakes, however, ours proved amazingly elusive to these handlers once the fire brigade had been called.  Our nervousness increased.  I had the house and windows well closed up and a local contractor was employed to cut the garden back, particularly those plants close to the house as these snakes are also climbers, so all our shade went and the house became stifling hot.  On top of that we had no warning where they would be and my husband frequently surprised one of the adults at the front door.  Our neighbours, who have young children, also complained of these snakes and a couple of the young ones were killed, but often here if one has a cobra(s) living in the yard the solution is to move house, something I didn’t want to do.  Our two cats became very nervous and one, nervous and jumpy since birth, decamped somewhere else altogether.  We occasionally saw her for a meal.  The other one took to finding a very high place in which to sleep and rest.  Our bird life in the garden also diminished, and I saw fewer frogs on the rare occasions I did venture out to the garden.

 I am a sound healer (use sound to heal the body) and so when Kaye and Ken told me about the snake repellers you sell emitting sounds and vibrations to repel the snakes I was overjoyed.  I am almost phobically frightened of snakes, but I really didn’t want to kill these snakes – just have them go somewhere else, and far away at that, as they are too dangerous to cohabit with.

It has been a great success.  I have placed one repeller in the front garden and then we set the second one to go off at a slightly different time sequence as your instructions suggest and that is in the back yard.  I’m not sure what I expected and it may be imaginary, but I feel we have the garden back to ourselves again.  The biggest change I have noticed is in the cats.  The nervous one has returned and they are both happily lazing around on the cement at the back of the house now.  They are also eating less – I suspect they were so stressed they were eating to compensate.  They are also hunting again and caught a big rat – can imagine that would have been a good snake meal when the snakes were here!   We also have more birds in the garden.  So, I have no idea if we have got rid of the snake family, but the garden feels different – certainly I feel much safer with the repellers quietly beeping away in the garden.

 I will close now – Infinite Gratitude to you for the snake repellers!

 Robyn F    MPPOE