Why do some people return their ball pythons?

[questforstarfish]

It's funny, in so many ways, my ball python is the easiest pet I've had:

• Once I got his enclosure well-balanced when it came to temp and humidity, that requires very little adjusting.
• Eats once every 10-14 days, and I got him from a reptile shelter when he was 8, so they'd already established that he was a great eater which makes him super easy.
• Regular water top-ups and washing out his water dish.
• I usually take him out once a week or so and let him run free for a couple of hours in a bedroom I have that's secure with no holes in the walls or anything (to let him at least sort-of utilize natural behaviours like stretching out, exploring etc).
• Otherwise...he spends most of his day hiding in his rock.

But in some ways, he's been extremely challenging. This has mainly had to do with my lifestyle, admittedly, but there are things I definitely found more difficult:

• Very, very few places I've lived have allowed reptiles. In fact, every apartment I've rented/owned since I got him (4 places) have has strata/rental agreements that allowed "cats, dogs and caged mammals" but do not allow reptiles as pets. My assumption is that this is because people are terrified of snakes ending up in their walls. I've simply done what most people do and ignored the rental/strata rules, then hidden my snake's existence from landlords/building managers, but this certainly carries a lot of risks in itself so it needs to be considered carefully. Finding housing in my province is a massive challenge for renters, and for buyers too, and the proportion of "no pets allowed" rentals has soared in the last ten years, so it's rarely an option to "just find a pet-friendly place." Often there are so few affordable housing options here that it's between having pets and being homeless for many, unfortunately.
• Moving, if you do it often, becomes a big headache. Because of my schooling the past four years, I've needed to do a lot of moving from town to town. My husband's work kept him about a 14-hour drive away from me for the duration of my schooling, so whenever we had a month-long break off school in the summers, I'd drive the 14 hours and stay there for the month. This means I've had to move my poor snake more times than I can count. Moving a 40-gallon terrarium on my own is not possible, so every single move or visit home meant rallying a friend of mine to come help me load the heavy glass tank down the apartment stairs and into my car. It's been frankly a bit ridiculous. But I realize that almost no one moves as often as I've had to the last few years, so this is a unique complaint that most people don't have to deal with.
• If you go on vacation or on a trip, or are in the process of renovating/moving, finding a friend willing to look after your snake (meaning put their hands into a snake enclosure to change their water) can be very difficult, as the prevalence of fear of snakes is enormous. Finding a friend willing to thaw a frozen dead mouse and feed it to your snake is even harder lol So if you don't have friends nearby who are cool with being up-close with snakes, and you don't live in a city large enough to have a store/breeder/something that boards snakes, anticipate that finding help might be a struggle.

I'm so happy I got my BP, and I love the guy to bits, but I find it's never the day-to-day care that presents me with challenges, it's always the logistical things! For someone with stable housing, who doesn't plan to move much and who has people/boarders willing to help you look after the guy if you need them to, none of this will be a big stressor. But it's an important consideration when taking on any pet, especially something considered to be "exotic" like reptiles!