I was cutting down some overgrown privet trees two years ago and there was a small Brown House Snake coiled in the lower branches.
Source: Wikipedia - By Erikpaterson - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
I made a half-hearted attempt to catch it and got bitten for my troubles. Note to self: snakes strike very fast when they feel threatened. I wasn't concerned about the bite at all because Brown House Snakes are dwarf members of the constrictor family of snakes and have no venom whatsoever. I had a few little pinpricks in my finger that bled, that was all. As it headed off in the direction of the pile of cut branches that were left behind after the first felling of the tree from hell, I noticed that it had healed bite-marks on it's back. Tough little snake, it had survived a tussle with one of my cats, too.
Since then, I occasionally wondered what had become of it and I am not bothered by the thought of having a resident snake in the garden. Brown House snakes eat crickets, grasshoppers, mice and small birds. Now that I think about it, the large wingless grasshopper disappeared shortly after I took pictures. The cats may have been to blame but it is also possible that the snake ate it. I was checking the plants for damage after the huge storm on Saturday and I almost stepped on the poor creature. Quite a bit bigger than the first snake, it quickly disappeared into a small space under an old concrete step, leaving only the tip of it's tail sticking out.
It could be the same snake, much larger now and I wonder whether the faint grey marks are old scars or a trick of the light. I hope it is, I like the idea of a thriving resident snake.
I found another type of snake in my bedroom once, a tiny little centipede eater. These small snakes with brown bodies and black heads normally live in old termite mounds. I don't know whether a cat brought it in or if it was attracted by the large numbers of centipedes around the house. They are known to have venom but are so small, there's no record of anyone ever having been bitten by one of these. You are more likely to be bitten by a centipede - I released it on the hill away from the house as it was in danger of being killed by one of the tenants should it make its way into one of their houses.