My son asked me to go & listen to his Ford Ranger 4x4 last night. It was making a mild thumping noise, with a vibration that you could feel from under the dash. It stopped when he turned the air con off, but started when ever the ventilation fan was running.

He decided it was either a mouse, rat or snake that had got into the ventilation system. Not wanting a snake to join him in the car, he borrowed my shopping trolley, leaving the Ranger in a car port for the night.

Today in moderate trepidation, in case he was about to have a meeting with an angry snake, he dropped the ventilation fan & motor & found his passenger, a rather deadly 1.3m eastern brown, coiled up in the drum fan. Well most of it was there, the head & about 10mm was spread around the housing. It must have been sticking out of the fan when he turned it on, & was ground away by the housing.

At least that made the thing less deadly, but the clean up has been quite an effort, & very unpleasant.

Don't tell anyone, or the greenies will be complaining he didn't rescue it. I was thinking perhaps it would be safer in suburbia, then remembered a rash of snakes in suburban barbeques, wardrobes & toy box stories on TV. I guess that's why greenies live in high rise apartments, to avoid the consequences of the protection of dangerous species they have pushed for.

Blowflies seem to come back after you kill the lot . But snakes can be killed if someone is in imminent danger. Browns need 4mg to kill and a full dose can kill 70 men. Let's hope gloves were used in cleaning up the fan and venom as a scratch could take in enough to spoil the day. Driving in an aerosol of brown venom in the car is not good bu the number of flies would be down.

Hasbeen found it strange but they thrive around here, seems people are killing far too many red belly blacks who eat the browns
Known to be able to handle them I get a call now and again
But as I get old the fast kill is my only help with a brown
PS local press of late has several photos of snakes crossing the beach and going for a swim

Haven't seen a red belly black around here Belly, but lots of yellow belly blacks. They get big & very aggressive. We have lost 2 dogs to them. One was asking for trouble, but the other was ignoring the thing & still got hit. It is really amazing how quickly the dogs, big ones, go when a black hits them, it is only seconds.

Found a dead 4m python down by the dam pump the other day. We've had a big yellow belly black around there for a couple of years. If we are noisy when we go down there we only see him sliding away, which is why he is still there. He won't be there long if he starts to get aggressive. I think the python may have been silly enough to take on the black to its cost.

Hasbeen not even sure I have ever seen a yellow belly, are they the copper heads we get in this state?
Browns are never nice, the king brown being the biggest
Bloke near here has chooks, swears only a netting wire fence saved him when it chased him
Three working cattle dogs, chained up, on my next door neighbor, across the paddock,all killed by browns

//Haven't seen a red belly black around here Belly, but lots of yellow belly blacks.//

Those are red-bellies, Hasbeen. The only other snake that gets referred to as a yellow belly black snake is the common tree snake, Dendrelaphis punctulata. They're not highly venomous, and wouldn't be able to kill a large dog that quickly.

Do you have a creek on your property? Red bellies like water, you'll often find them near creeks.