A little background about the mountain cabin I live in. It has well water from a drilled well. Only the facility in the bathroom drains into a septic system. All the rest drains from the sinks and the shower and the washing machine through the walls and by two inch white pipe at an angle directly on to the surrounding surface of the lawn. That way "Gray Water" is recycled back into the earth to be filtered and refilling the water tables supplying the well which is 149 feet below the earth's surface.
The dogs were going nuts! I opened it and found out why. There at the bottom looking right up at me was a healthy small garter snake that had crawled up the pipe and into the washing machine and couldn't get out. DID I KILL IT??? NOPE -I went and got my two foot long spring loaded "GRAB ALL" pushed it wide open and grabbed the snake behind the neck and took it out back by the burn barrel and let it go. It went right back to its mommy with quite a story to tell.
The dogs didn't SEE that snake they SMELLED it, and thank god it happened to me and not a lady with a weak heart.