What type of substrate do you use?

they all have their good and bad points.....

Good Points
Aspen - easy to spot clean because of color
Cypress - higher humidity
Newspaper - Cheap/easy

Bad Points
Aspen - Molds in HIGH humidity
Cypress - I have seen 'sores' on my ball pythons, I guess from not 100% pure cypress, most likely a cypress blend
Newspaper - not very good looking, and can have trouble with humidity

It is all a matter or what works better for you...

I have been doing this about 10 years, and I ALWAYS go back to newspaper......

Jason

I use coco coir, cheap (very cheap) and holds humidity like crazy easily spot cleaned.

The only caution I have is about paper towels with anything other than young snakes. Paper towel ingestion is as often as not fatal. I would not recommend it as there are no clear advantages over other paper products. The downside is fairly large I see no reason to add risk with no benefits.

I use newspaper riht now since everything else keeps my humidity way too high, but once i stop being lazy I'm gonna add ventilation and switch to aspen or cypress, that way i can spot clean instead of having to wash the entire tub every time they poop.

I use kiln dried pine and it works great. I've tried pretty much all other types of substrate and find it to be best for cleaning and humidity control. You gotta use what suits your situation best. Paper towels and newspaper were too much maintenance for me. I'd clean every tub out on Tuesday and by Thursday half of them had made a mess and I was cleaning an entire tub again.