An unexpected visitor

Ms. Naja came a-calling to my house.

As i was listening to music and surfing the net around 8pm last night, my aunt, who was sitting in the living room watching tv started calling me urgently. I couldn't hear what she was saying, so i reluctantly tore myself from the computer.

She was saying a snake had come into the house, and was hiding under a pile of junk,odds and ends, and tools next to the television.
At first i was skeptical that a snake would find it's way here; the last time i had to deal with a snake was almost a decade ago when the place had less people and more vegetation, and even that was just a small brown cobra.
But this one, according to my aunt, was almost one metre long and black. I thought my aunt maybe saw a lizard or something, but nevertheless i picked up a long stick and a flashlight to see our "guest" myself.

After waiting and shining the flashlight around abit, i heard a faint rustling in the recesses of the junkpile. Something was definitely in there. I waited and strained my eyes in the darkness and shifting shadows caused by moving the flashlight, but couldn't see the creature.

Then i heard the rustling was suddenly much closer, and i looked down. Lo, a scaly, black and sleek section of the snake's body was right under me, and separated from my feet just by a couple of cardboard boxes. It slithered around abit, then went back into the junkpile.

By now i knew it definitely was a snake, but not which species and how venomous, and more importantly why the hell it came into my house. I quickly took kitty and locked him into the bathroom.
I shifted my position to another side of the junkpile, and was startled when i saw the snake's head sticking out from under some stuff. It quickly (and literally) turned tail to hide in the junk. I actually managed to catch its tail, but it was incredibly strong and the scales slippery, and managed to get loose. It also hissed a little when i caught it's tail.

I was in a dilemma. Attempt to catch it? Kill it? Drive it out of the house? Call the fire department/whoever?

1) Seeing snake catchers on TV and all looks like fun, but this is real life, and i've seen the aftermath of being bitten by particularly poisonous snakes. Strike that.

2) Killing it would be pretty cruel, since it seemed intent on avoiding confrontation with humans. And attempting to kill it would also mean risking getting bitten.

3) A more attractive option, but i couldn't see how to do that because it wouldn't want to move if i were making loud noises or poking around the junkpile with the stick. Also, there's no telling if it might decide the house is pretty cosy after all and come back in, or think kitty looks like a particularly juicy dinner.

4) Was thinking of it, but dismissed it cause i don't want strangers running all over my house.

So after thinking it over, i decided to chase it out of the house. Failing that i'd have to kill it. I pulled out a can of insect spray and directed it into the place the snake was in. I kept it up until the vapor came out of the other side of the pile. Sure enough, the snake slithered out at top speed (very damn fast bastard he/she is) and into my front yard. Once again i ran after it and got a better grip of its tail, but it pulled very, very hard (i was surprised at it's strength, the thing is a veritable muscle unto itself) while hissing and extended it's hood a slight bit, and again slipped out of my hand and lost itself in the flowerpots and old gardening tools there.
Under the twilight, i could see hints of it's dark, shiny scales where the grass was too short to cover it. Again i sprayed the insecticide at it, and it finally slithered off into the night.

This whole debacle lasted around an hour or so. Then i looked for info on my uninvited guest, and found that its most likely a cobra of the Naja nigricollis woodi species, seeing as it was all black with no noticeable colored markings (tho i didn't really get a clear look at it so i could be mistaken) and was a spitting cobra. Lucky i wear glasses.

I stayed up until 3am to make sure that Ms. Naja didn't decide to come back to call, then put kitty back outside and locked his pad's door for the night just to be safe.

I suspect that it was someone's pet, or was smuggled in to be sold illegally as an exotic pet but somehow got free, judging from its strange behaviour of coming into a house which had the TV blaring and a human sitting there, and its eagerness to avoid confrontation.

Some resources i found useful to distinguish the cobra:
http://www.kingsnake.com/elapids/black.htm
http://www.coastalreptiles.com/naja.htm


A relative of Ms. Naja, image from the internet. The one i encountered was all black.