7-foot snake in Texas cozies up to new neighbor's front door grilles

MORGAN'S POINT RESORT, Texas -- A new resident in one Texas neighborhood came home to find an unexpected visitor: a nearly 7-foot snake that had cozied up and wrapped itself around the metal grilles on his front door.

"The homeowner literally put his key in the front door, and when the serpent moved in for a closer look, the guy was clearly a bit caught off guard," Training Chief Taran Vaszocz-Williams with the Morgan's Point Resort Fire Department told ABC.

The homeowner enlisted Vaszocz-Williams, the Game Warden, a resident snake enthusiast and several other members of the fire and police departments from Morgan's Point Resort, a small town 75 miles north of Austin, to remove the snake from his front door. The coalition of first responders used their specialized snake-removal equipment to extract the snake from the grilles.

They identified the creature as a Texas rat snake, a non-venomous species commonly found throughout central and northern Texas. The snakes are well-adapted to the presence of humans and prey on rats, mice and other rodents, and they've even been known to scale walls in search of their next meal.

Vaszocz-Williams said snakes of all kinds live in the densely wooded area and are commonly spotted by residents, though it's not so common for the serpents to make their way into a newly constructed subdivision and wrap themselves around a front door.

"Officer Martinez provided a chauffeured ride to a wooded area where the snake could go about his business with rodents and such," Vaszocz-Williams quipped.