Well, there are pest control services. Or one could just decide that snakes are good.
There is the story of the Elder Paisios on Mount Athos, that when a group of pilgrims came to the Holy Mountain to visit him, on the way up the mountain to his cell, long before they reached it, they encountered an asp, which one of the pilgrims killed with a shovel. Further up the winding track, they were met by Paisios, who was greatly distressed, "What did you do? What did you do?" he cried, "You killed my friend!" The pilgrims asked what he meant, and he explained that as he was praying in his cell, he saw them kill the snake, which used to wander in and out of his cell. (There was no line of sight between Paisios's cell and the place on the track where they met the snake, the story is told as evidence not only that the holy ones living in our own time, like Daniel and St. Seraphim of Sarov before them, could tame and befriend wild creatures by their meekness, but also that prophetic gifts are still alive in the Church -- St. Paisios reposed in 1994.)
Now if you're not a holy elder, having poisonous snakes in your home is probably a very bad idea, but garter snakes are hardly a "nightmare" if one just takes the right attitude.
