By CHOONG MEK ZHIN
mekzhin@thestar.com.my Photos by SHAARI CHEMAT | Jul 14, 2010
Slithery visitors worrying residents
WHEN people talk of pests at home they usually mean rats or cockroaches but for housewife Jess Chan it is snakes!
Jess Chan said there had been two incidences involving snakes at her home in Pandan Glades Garden.
“The first time happened a few years ago. The maid found my child who was about a year old then reaching for the reared head of a snake that was on a pile of laundry,” Chan recalled.
Chan said the maid’s first reaction was to snatch the toddler and run.
“Luckily my maid managed to find a stick and beat the snake to death,” the 29-year-old pregnant mother of two said.
Another incident happened when Chan’s mother-in-law was turning on the tap in the garden to water the plants.
“She heard a hissing sound and looked up to find a snake by the water hose,” Chan said, adding that her maid also managed to kill it.
Despite the two close encounters at her home that is a few houses away from a secondary jungle, Chan’s family has not considered moving.
An Indonesian maid Asria, 47, who works in the corner house near the jungle, said snakes were common in the area that sometimes she would see it daily.
“Another area where there are snakes is the fenced up area behind the house. There are big trees and plenty of dried leaves on the ground where I believe snakes use as nests,” Asria said.
She said she only went to the back of the house in the morning to wash clothes and being terrified of snakes, would call her employer whenever she saw one.
Asria added that in her five years working here, there were no incidences of the snakes entering the house except last week when she was back in Indonesia.
Terence Ee said the incident involved his neighbour finding a snake on the sofa in the living room.
“He managed to kill it and I saw the creature which was about more than a metre long. I believe it was a cobra,” Ee said, adding that he had complained of the problem to the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ).
“Eight months ago, my mother-in-law saw a snake on the road and we called the Fire and Rescue Department as advised by MPAJ. They said that they did not find the snake and that was the end of it,” Ee said.
He said since the secondary jungle was within the Kuala Lumpur border, he had also made a complaint at Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai’s service centre a few months ago to which there was no reply.
MPAJ councillor Keppy Wong said the council had diverted the complaint to Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL).
“Usually, they will send a notice to the landowner to clear the land. After the stipulated deadline, under the Local Government Act, DBKL will then clear the land and send the bill to the landowner,” Wong said.
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