A Georgia senior citizen was forced to leave her rental home after finding snakes in her furniture

An eastern rat snake. Julio Tamayo/Getty Images

• A Georgia woman had to flee her rental home after discovering several snakes, even in her furniture.
• Mary Carswell told WMAZ-TV that she found six snakes since 2021 in the rental she’s lived in for years.
• Carswell is worried that snakes laid eggs in her furniture, so she’s had to leave that behind too.

A Georgia woman was forced to leave her rental home after she said she found several snakes in the house – including in her sofa.

Mary Carswell said she spotted the first snake in 2021 and has since seen five more, she told WMAZ-TV.

“I didn’t know what kind it was. It was dark. It was at night. I’m coming out of the bathroom,” Carswell told the outlet. “I killed it. I beat him.”

Since then, she’s struggled to relax in the rental home she’s lived in for seven years, Carswell told WMAZ.

“You know, you don’t sleep for two or three nights, but then you get used to it again because you don’t see it,” she told the outlet. “I love the place. I’m not gonna live with snakes.”

The snake problem began with a rat infestation, Carswell told WMAZ, adding that she asked her landlord to call an exterminator, but according to her, he never did. Insider’s efforts to reach the landlord were unsuccessful on Saturday.

“I can’t put fruit down, I can’t put cookies – nothing down,” she said. “There’s plenty of rats.”

Carswell said her landlord gave her rat pellets and glue traps, according to WMAZ. The rundown rental home has started to sag in different areas, leaving gaps in her floors and doors that are open to the outside, Carswell told the outlet.

“I’m living in a motel paying money every night,” Carswell told WMAZ. “If he had listened and did like I asked, I don’t think they would’ve come in. No one should have to live like this.”

In a comment to Insider, Carswell said her landlord hadn’t changed his response to her snake situation, only reaching out to her for rent. WMAZ was able to contact the landlord, who declined to comment on the situation.

Carswell’s daughter, Demetriss Strange, wrote in a GoFundMe that her mother had to leave her furniture behind at the house because there were snakes in the sofa, and she feared they had laid eggs.  Strange told WMAZ that Carswell has health conditions like “open heart surgeries, leukemia,” and doesn’t need to deal with an infestation as well.

“We don’t want any more problems,” Strange told WMAZ.