Friday Poll: Maryland Snake House

Black rat snakes: how many are in there? Via Wikipedia.

Jeff and Jody Brooks contend that the home they bought in Maryland is infested with snakes, and so they’re suing a real estate agent for four times the sale price:

Jeff, with his machete, leads two lawyers to the basement.

“Let him go first,” says his wife, Jody Brooks, from the doorway.

Because their Annapolis-area home, the couple says, is infested with snakes.

Black rat snakes wintered in the walls and tunneled through the insulation. Snake paths ran from the basement to the roof.

Jeff and Jody Brooks bought the house on the Broadneck Peninsula in December. They filed a lawsuit two weeks ago seeking $2 million and claiming the real estate agent hid her knowledge of the snakes.

Here’s today’s question: assuming the home is infested with snakes, and that the Brooks family was unaware of that fact, have they suffered a loss? Is this a lost investment, or, by getting a house full of snakes, have they instead gained a bonus herpetarium, a small snake-filled zoo for the delight of the community?

(Quick note: I’m not contending that this house, as a bonus herpetarium, would be a reasonable legal defense for the realtor; it certainly wouldn’t be. This poll is simply a general measure of what the Brooks family received if they’ve a house full of black rat snakes.)

Would that snake house, in your estimation, be a good or bad thing?