A woman in Queensland, Australia received a nasty shock when she went to change her sheets on Monday afternoon and found a 6-foot snake in her bed.
It was not her ex, but a deadly eastern brown snake that had slithered into her bedroom to snooze in her sheets.
“She said that she ‘didn’t really want it there’ and shut up the room, put a towel underneath the door, and rang me,” snake catcher Zachery Richards, from Zachery’s Snake and Reptile Relocation, told Newsweek.
Zachery’s Snake and Reptile Relocation/Facebook
Eastern brown snakes are responsible for more snakebite fatalities than any other species in Australia. According to the University of Melbourne’s Australian Venom Research Unit, they have the world’s second-most toxic venom. It contains a neurotoxin that shuts down the victim’s heart, diaphragm and lungs, causing them to suffocate.
Eastern brown snakes are found throughout eastern and southern Australia, hence their name. Their natural habitat also overlaps with some of the most populated areas in the country, so it is not uncommon to find them in people’s homes.
The incident took place in Maroon, a rural locality in Queensland near the Gold Coast. When Richards arrived at the scene, the snake had not moved. “I pulled the towel out from underneath the door and opened up the door and it was just lying in bed having a snooze,” he said. “When I disturbed it, it sort of slipped down underneath the bed.”
The snake was fairly docile, although Richards said that it did get “a little cranky” when he came to move the bed to catch it.
Richards added that this snake had probably come into the house through an open door. “It was quite a hot day that day, so it probably came inside looking for some shelter.”
After hooking the snake into his bag, Richards released it into some nearby bushland, far away from people and property.
Richards shared the incident in a post on Facebook in which he warned people to “check the bed carefully.”
The post has received hundreds of comments from concerned readers. “Well I’m never sleeping again,” wrote one user, while another posted, “I’d burn the bedding.”
Richards said that the woman did the right thing, putting a towel underneath the door and calling for help. “If you see a snake, back away slowly, leave it alone, confine it to the one room and call in a professional,” he added.
