he lived in an Apt complex and was illegally keeping puff adders and other deadly snakes, neighbors and management at apt were clueless...people are shits...

Edit: guess he wasn't such a nice guy afterall...hmmm.

and live a very long snakey life right where it is. That is a large area and there were always be lots of mice, rats and sadly other creatures that it will eat. The heat is probably really comfortable for it. I would bet it wants to see people as much as they want to see it.

Don't put your hands or feet in a dark place to look for anything, use a long stick. I would not want to be anywhere near a loose one. I took care of poisonous snakes at the zoo for a while, nope to a loose cobra. I loved the job but we were able to do it mostly with safe measures. Cobras can have real tempers.

Unless it finds a mate, it’s not going to become a menace to the eco-system. You probably have to be on the lookout for rattlers, so avoid snakes unless you know what kind they are.

He went inside briefly and the cobra escaped. People were quite concerned, especially because he lived across the street from an elementary school. Some said not to worry because it wouldn't survive the first frost in chilly Massachusetts. This is what happened:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.spokesman.com/stories/1996/nov/07/missing-cobra-turns-up-in-fourth-grade-classroom/%3famp-content=amp