The unnamed woman made the alarming discovery earlier this month and contacted Sonoma County Reptile Rescue for assistance.
In a Facebook post, rescue centre director Alan Wolf revealed that ‘3 hours and 45 minutes’ after receiving the Santa Rosa woman’s phone call, he had pulled out a writhing mass of ’59 babies and 22 adults’.
After returning twice more, Wolf managed to pull out another seven snakes, and suspects there could still be more lurking beneath the property, later commenting, ‘I will be going back and checking several more times before the 15th of this month’.
The snakes were able to make themselves at home here because the house in question is built ‘up and around a rockpile’, with Wolf having spent most of his time ‘turning over rocks plus fiberglass plus fiberglass plus other garbage they never cleaned up when they built the house’.
With this sort of setup, Wolf explained the snakes were able to get under the house ‘through holes underground’, noting ‘it was not very well covered in around the walls’.
Wolf identified this snake as a northern Pacific rattlesnake, one of eight species of snake in California.
As per California Herps, a website which offers information about reptiles found in California, a bite from this particular type of snake may ‘be very dangerous without immediate medical treatment’, and could require hospitalisation.