Stunned Mom and Young Son Find Snakes in Hotel Pool, Slithering Under Room Door
The guest later reported the incident to the health department.
When you stay at a hotel, you get your own room, but you do have to share common spaces with other guests. You expect to intermingle at the breakfast buffet or in the elevator, but you probably don't anticipate running into guests of the reptile variety while plunging into the hotel pool. However, that's exactly what happened to a mother and son duo during their stay at a hotel in Wisconsin. Read on to find out more about their frightening snake encounter.
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Two snakes were spotted in the hotel.
According to NBC-affiliate WISN, Michelle Griese and her four-year-old son were staying on the first floor of a Country Inn and Suites by Radisson in Germantown, Wisconsin, on Saturday, Aug. 12. They were heading to the hotel's pool area at 8:30 p.m., but two guests exiting the area warned them about snakes in the pool, two of which they'd removed. When Griese and her son went to take a look themselves, they, too, were greeted by snakes.
"Sure enough, I go in, and there's a snake in the hot tub," Griese told WISN, noting that when they exited the pool area, there was another snake in the hotel's hallway—which then entered a first-floor hotel room.
"I literally watched the snake slither under this person's door," Griese said.
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Griese informed the guest before hotel staff arrived.
Hearing the TV playing, Griese knocked on the door to let the unsuspecting guest know about his new roommate.
Griese told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the man in the room tried to catch the snake using a plunger. While this was going on, members of the hotel staff arrived and picked the reptile up. (Griese noted that the guests who first discovered the snakes must have let the staff know.)
"She literally takes it through the pool room and just puts it outside of the doors, which I assume is where … the snakes are coming from since they're coming through the pool room," Griese told the Journal Sentinel. "That didn't make any sense to me."
According to a report from the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department obtained by Washington County Insider, Griese told officials the snakes were "a variety of sizes, up to a few feet long and others less than a foot." A maintenance worker told an inspector that he thought the snakes were of the species Nerodia sipedon—a common watersnake—which the health department agreed to be "plausible" after reviewing photos.
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A staff member suggested a mother snake could have laid eggs.
As Griese told the Journal Sentinel, a staff member said they'd "been dealing with snakes for a couple of days now"—and she wasn't the only guest to notice. Michael Herhold told WISN that his friend also saw and removed a snake from the Country Inn and Suites hot tub.
Griese was surprised that guests and staff were handling the snakes, as opposed to pest professionals. As she told the health department, a staff member told her they see more snakes due to the hotel's proximity to a marsh. Considering the issues they'd been dealing with, the hotel suspected that a mother snake might have laid eggs.
"This is an ongoing issue, and they're continually removing these snakes, or attempting to remove them, and not doing a great job because they're not taking them very far away," Griese told the Journal Sentinel. "They're just putting them right outside the door, and they're just slithering back in."
As a result of the incident, Griese said she and her son didn't stay the night, and when she asked for a refund, she was only given half of her money back. She told the Journal Sentinel she doesn't plan to return to the Germantown Country Inn & Suites.
"I think the thing that threw me off the most was watching the snake slither under the person's door. And knowing that I was on the first floor, I was like, 'What would I have done if a snake slithered into my room?'" she told WISN.
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The health department did end up visiting the hotel.
After speaking with Griese, an inspector visited the hotel on Aug. 15, according to the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department report. The general manager confirmed details about the ongoing issues, but "refuted the claim that any snakes had entered guest rooms," claiming that "it was guests overreacting and did not occur."
A member of the maintenance staff told the inspector all of the snakes they had found were less than a foot, but after hearing rumors of a larger snake, he posited that could be the mother.
The inspector didn't see any snakes during his visit, but did find a snake skin by the pool. The hotel was asked to work with a professional pest control company—which it confirmed it is doing—and no violation for pests was written.
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The hotel issued a statement saying that no other snakes have been spotted.
The Germantown Country Inn & Suites, which is franchised and independently owned, released a statement noting that they were aware of the situation. The hotel said that while the snake situation was "unfortunate," it was also "an isolated event."
"We want to assure the public that the safety and security of our guests is and always has been our number one priority," the statement reads, per Fox 6 Milwaukee. "We had and will continue to have a service agreement in place with a reputable pest control company to minimize the possibility for similar incidents in the future. We also want the public to know that it is our understanding the species of the snake(s), represented no imminent danger or threat of harm to our guests. As stated in the public Washington County Health Department report, it is believed the snake(s) entered our pool area through a set of Emergency Doors that had been propped open by a guest."
The hotel added that it is taking steps to reduce the chances of this happening in the future and stated that "no snake related incidents" occurred since Aug. 12.
Best Life reached out to the Germantown Country Inn & Suites for more information, and will update the story upon hearing back.
