Toilets, school bags, toasters: The 17 weirdest SEQ snake hideouts | Photos, video
Hot wet weather has snake catchers at their busiest in years. We take a look at the 17 weirdest places the reptiles have been found in Greater Brisbane. PHOTOS, VIDEO
South West
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Recent hot, wet weather has snake catchers across southeast Queensland run off their feet as the reptiles revel in ideal conditions.
Many say they have been dealing with up to a dozen callouts a day, with areas such as Samford, The Gap, Moreton suburbs and Redlands topping the list.
While gardens, sheds and garages/carports were the most common areas to find them, in the past few years they have popped up everywhere from inside soft drinks cans dropped off for recycling ,to a girl’s school bag and one python found neatly coiled up in a frying pan.
Rosewood snake catcher Andrew Smedley estimated one-in-five homes in places such as Ipswich had one or more pythons in their ceilings, with more than 10 found in some ceilings.
“They’re pretty safe to have in your roof. A lot of them go unnoticed,’’ he said.
“I had one in Collingwood Park that would have lived there for 10-15 years,” he said.
“I’d like to encourage people to leave them there because they’re really good for vermin control. They’ll clean out your rats, your possums — you name it.”
Brooke Harrison from Harrison’s Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catcher said the company had seen a noticeable increase in the number of call-outs for snakes.
“Especially after the recent rains, snakes have been coming out to mate,” Ms Harrison said.
Ms Harrison said their service was averaging around 12 calls a day, mostly to relocate snakes that had been found in people’s yards.
Here are some of the 21 weirdest places the slippery intruders have been found in Greater Brisbane in the past few years.
LOGAN/REDLANDS
Logan Hospital
In 2019, local snake catcher Glenn “Ozzie’’ Lawrence was called out to remove a 3m python hanging around the front door of the Logan Hospital emergency department.
In March this year, Mr Lawrence warned Logan residents to check inside shoes and under cars after finding 25 snakes in people’s homes in three days.
He said a family at Greenbank had a scare when they rushed to bring in shoes from the rain but did not check inside, where a 45cm red-bellied black snake was curled up inside.
Underwood
Staff at an Underwood Containers For Change collection centre called snake catchers after finding one of the reptiles inside a soft drink can.
A worker raised the alarm after noticing the can was heavier than the rest and there were peculiar scales inside it.
Redland Bay
A couple had their day out on Moreton Bay cut short in May, 2020 when they found a snake on board.
Redland’s Snake Catcher’s Tony Morrison said the wife reached for her jumper on the cold day, disturbing the 1.5m python, and the terrified pair turned around and hightailed it for shore.
He was able to remove it quickly once the pair returned to shore.
BRISBANE
The Gap
Steven Brown from Brisbane North Snake Catchers and Relocation received a distressed phone call from residents who had just moved into a house in The Gap, only to find this beauty inside a removal box in a spare room the next day.
The Gap
In what Mr Brown termed his “crappiest job ever’’, he extracted a coastal carpet python, covered in poo, after it was spotted slithering around in a toilet.
Snakes sometimes entered sewerage pipes where grates outside houses were not properly secured, he said.
He washed the intrepid intruder with water before releasing it.
Ferny Grove
Mr Brown prised this fellow out of a car engine bay, a favourite haunt of the reptiles.
Moorooka
In June, 2020, a particularly big year for callouts, Moorooka Nissan (Moorooka Motorgroup) salesman Gary Troughton was propping open the bonnet on his latest sale, a Nissan X-Trail, when he saw a large carpet snake curled up in the engine bay.
That part of the caryard, on busy Ipswich Rd, gets the morning sun so the slippery hitchhiker obviously decided it was a good spot to warm up on a cold morning.
“I’ve worked here since 1992 and this is the first time I’ve seen something like this,’’ Mr Troughton said.
MORETON
Griffin
Mr Brown had to remove this specimen from a Griffin woman’s letterbox.
He said she was worried it was a deadly redbellied black snake, but it turned out to be a mildly venomous whipsnake.
Griffin
In July 2020, Mr Brown was phoned by a Griffin man who had just lit the gas vents on an outdoor barbecue when he noticed a sudden movement and spotted a 1.5m carpet snake.
“It had got pretty hot — there were singe marks but it was luckily only superficial,’’ Mr Brown said.
Cedar Creek
A dad had just finished reading a bedtime story to his two daughters in 2019, while lying on one of their beds, when he found a carpet python under the doona.
Mount Nebo
A resident had just got back from her run in 2020 when she spotted this small red-bellied black snake behind her toaster just centimetres from her hands.
IPSWICH
Collingwood Park
Andrew Smedley coaxed this fellow out of a roof space.
Augustine Heights
A schoolgirl got a fright at morning tea in 2018 when she found a red-belled black snake in her school bag, as well as the treat she reached in to eat.
Lacey’s Creek (near Dayboro)
When retired barrister David Tait got home one memorable day in August, 2020 he found two massive carpet snakes, 2.8m and 2.5m long, together weighing in at an estimated 22kg, had smashed a hole in the fibro roof of his kitchen.
Wights Mountain
A Samford Valley-area gardener got a nasty shock when they walked into their garden shed and discovered this 1.8m deadly red-bellied black snake curled up under a lawnmower.
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