When I was stationed out on the Mojave desert one of the things you had to be careful of was the snakes (poisonous variety) coming into ground-level entry buildings and getting into your boots or even onto beds. One barracks rat near the door didn’t heed the warnings not to leave the door open. He woke up with a nasty visitor lying across his feet. I don’t think his feet touched the ground getting out the far door of the barracks and he screamed all of the way. It’s possible to pick up a guest if you leave an open suit case in the right place.
Yeah it’s possible, but seems very unlikely. I’ve lived in Fla., where rattlers are supposed to be crawling all over the place. Lived here for 25 years and haven’t even seen one in the wild. This guy leaves his suitcase on the ground for an hour, and picks one up.