My buddy would let his 9' burmese python wonder the house and it got in the ducts his mom made him get rid of it after that she had nightmares the snake had her in the middle of the night
i dunno if rat snakes are anything like ca kings then they can withstand temps of below freezing. and dont think warm, just dark when looking for a snake.
Probably because you go looking, I find things work out best when you go out hiking not expecting anything... Then BAM snake galore! One time I almost stepped on a pygmy rattlesnake. We have a black racer that lives in our back yard and i told all my friends hes off limits to catching because I caught him once before and let him go in my old roommates room (at that time anything we could catch we'd let go in her room) and then we got the house fumigated... Some how he managed to get out and sometimes when you sit on the front porch he come slither by (I know its the same snake because he has a weird crooked tail for whatever reason). Hes our house snake, we have a couple house geckos too :] Animals are fun, even if there not exactly pets :]