These Security Guards Truly Are Coldblooded Cobras Keep Zimbabwe Burglars At Bay

Steve Kenee had an uninsured $45,000 laser engraver in his cottage and a pent-up need for a week’s vacation.

One would think that having his mother-in-law, his gardener and his Rottweilers remain on the property would ease his mind about burglars. But Kenee knows that Harare’s thieves are not above throwing poisoned meat to dogs and turning his mother-in-law and gardener into reluctant victims.

So, just to be sure, he had Ben Vermeulen drop off some cobras.

Vermeulen recently founded a company, Repsec, for “reptile security.” For about $12 a day, he tapes all the cracks and holes in the house, leaves a few snakes inside and posts signs outside that say, in two languages and a cartoon version for the illiterate, that the house has new occupants with a bad attitude and some very wide necks.

“People put in high-tech security systems,” Vermeulen said, “but criminals are going high-tech as well. I’m getting back to basics - superstition and fear.”

Harare is an ideal venue for “watch snakes.” Zimbabwe has a low rate of violent crime but a large number of burglaries. Most jobs offer a month’s vacation, so employed Zimbabweans leave their large, low houses empty for long stretches. Best of all, highly poisonous Egyptian cobras run wild here.

Vermeulen applied to the Parks and Wildlife Department for a permit, but the government is not sure how it feels about this.The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opposes the application.

“Slithering over settees and polished floors is not exactly their natural environment,” said Meryl Harrison, the society’s general manager.Steve Durrant of the Zimbabwe Herpetological Society, a consultant to the SPCA, said that Egyptian cobras are high-strung and that being moved often would subject them to so much stress that they could stop eating and die. He also disputed Vermeulen’s claim of a herpetology degree.

Vermeulen strongly disagrees about the moving of cobras.

“I don’t want to get into a wrangle with them,” he said. “But there’s hardly any stress. They curl up on a carpet and go to sleep.”

On the matter of his degree, he is rather shaky. He said he has a bachelor of science in herpetology from Illinois State University but cannot remember which campus he had attended. “The one near Boston,” he said at last.

Vermeulen is angry about what he sees as the government’s regulatory pickiness. He has been told there is concern about detergents in the houses he protects and about traces of insecticide in floor wax.

“Under normal circumstances,” he pointed out, “people just beat these snakes to death.”

Durrant, the herpetologist, called the business “a dumb idea” and said he would testify against it if the government convenes a committee on the permit appeal. “What happens if the owner comes back and one snake’s missing?” he asked. “I can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to let him put cobras in his house and pay him for the privilege.”

Kenee, nonetheless, is a satisfied customer - and not just because he returned to find his engraver and its computer unmolested.

“I’d had shrews - they’re like rats - in that cottage,” he said. “When we got back, one of the snakes had three bulges in it. That was an unexpected bonus.”