"Rattlesnakes and under" gives me the willies...still. In '79 I was a contractor in N CA. I was working alone up on the mtn on a small place that had been a servants qtrs at some point in its early days. A fuse had blown and the 4 fuse box was down under the floor opposite the crawl hole thru the foundation. There was no screening on the access hole and all I had was one of those old D-cell flashlights that you had to keep banging to keep going. I had to get this done so with great trepidation, in I went. I got across the probably 16" crawl space and got the fuse changed, turned around and there were two rattelsnakes. One on either side of the access hole. My light was out, dusk, and I had no way of knowing if there were others. Except where the daylight was I could not see. I tried my absolute best to push the floor up. Finally, I had to get myself squared away (I admit that it was exceedingly difficult) and start to one side in hopes that there were no others on the chosen side, and that the two were willing to give way. I made it out with no scars, well the physical kind anyway. I learned a lot about myself under there, most of it not good
Good luck with your problem. Oh, and next year I'm moving back to CA and have a house that has a 16" crawl space I will have to spend a bunch of time under. Plenty of lights and the Smith model 63 or 60 with snake shot...at least! Actually, I've heard you can hire some darned fool to do this kind of work!