Brooke here:
I talk a lot of trash about the house but it’s really amazing. Yes, I have to get out in the yard and start battling fifty years’ worth of English ivy and wisteria. Yes, the bathrooms are squalid holes. Yes, we have a huge snake in the house and we have no idea what flavor of venomous it might be. Yes, we only have a pool in the technical sense. And yes, the previous owners loved yellow so much they used it in every room (except the master bedroom, which was the color of murder. Go figure.).
Although… right now I’m at my computer. I’m supposed to be editing some public policy dross on childhood obesity, but I’m watching the squirrels play in the Japanese maple, four feet and a window away.
This is great.
Flying by night 
Awwwwww.
(1) Root out all the ivy by all means, but just cut back the wisteria, ok? When it’s kept reasonably in check … like, growing up its trellis (it has trellises, I hope) and hanging down no more than two or three feet, in full bloom, it’s instant Tiffany glass. (and if all your wisteria turns out to be standard purple, get in a few white plants too.)
(2) You might find it worth your while to take that snakeskin to the nearby university and ask their resident herpetologist(s) what kind of snake shed it. Maybe they will say “Oh, that’s a blacksnake, you want to keep him, he’ll eat rats.” On the other hand they *might* say “OMFG, that’s the biggest coral snake I’ve ever seen, you better get [name of professional snake catcher] in to take him away.”
(3} With any kind of luck, you’ll get to see an angry male squirrel hanging from a branch and dissing out the neighborhood, his little balls swinging like little bells.
(Do you have bluejays in NC? The squirrels here (golden) HATE the local bluejays (scrub) ’cause they compete for the annual acorn crop. We have a 300-year-old scrub oak hanging over the house, and we heard the first acorn of the year fall onto the neighbors’ shed roof yesterday. The Battle of the Acorns is about to resume.)
Uh-uh to No. 1. Wisteria is a “kill it with fire!” plant around here. I love the way it looks but in the South, it gives kudzu a run for its money.
I’m fortunate enough to know a herpetologist and a zookeeper. The herper said it was most likely a black rat snake or a king snake, and the zookeeper confirmed black rat. So all we have to worry about is the smell of a snake in the attic, and the small problem that I’m allergic to reptiles (not as uncommon as it sounds). Since I haven’t been sneezing, it’s probably moved on.
If you have fruit and don’t pick it soon enough you may get an infamous drunken squirrel video….
We don’t have fruit that squirrels will eat, not in my immediate vicinity anyway. What we do have is pyracantha bushes which put out zillions of rather mealy red berries in the fall. I’ve never known a human to eat them either, but the birds love them. Trouble is, the berries do ferment on the bush, and so we get drunken birds. They’re mostly American robins (Turdus migratorius), which are really thrushes and about five times the mass of your European robins (Erythacus rubecola). They get plastered and fall off the bushes and lie on the ground till a cat gets them or they sober up and fly away.
Yay Squirrels! I think I know why the previous tenant enjoyed yellow so much, but it just means that He Who Must Not Be Named really should not be named there. Also, learn the Elder Sign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow