By Sarah Richards, ABC News
A two-and-a-half-metre snake crawled onto her bed at her Brisbane house. Photo: ABC News / Rachel Bloor
When Brisbane resident Rachel Bloor woke up to discover a carpet python curled up on top of her, she was rattled.
The two-and-a-half-metre snake crawled onto her bed late on Monday evening.
When Bloor felt something heavy on her stomach and chest, she initially thought it was her labradoodle.
But when she put her arm on top of the covers, she felt something move in her hands.
Bloor quickly woke her husband and told him to turn the lights on.
Rachel Bloor suspects the snake slithered up to the second storey of her house and through the window. Photo: ABC News / Supplied
She said he told her, "Babe, don't move. There's about a two-and-a-half metre carpet python on top of you".
That's when the panic set in.
"I was worried about the dogs," Bloor said.
Her husband quickly took the two dogs out of the bedroom.
"It was me [who] was left in there to deal with it," Bloor said.
From the other room, her husband told her she would need to crawl out from under the covers.
"So, I sort of side shuffled out," Bloor said.
Once out of her bed, she guided the snake out the window.
She suspects it slithered up to the second storey of her house, climbed through the window, pushed the plantation shutter open, and "then curled up on top" of her.
Bloor, who grew up on an acreage, said she wasn't scared of the snake and was just glad it wasn't a toad.
"Toads freak me out," she said.
Backyards the 'perfect habitat'
Ipswich-based snake catcher Kurt Whyte said snake activity had ramped up with breeding season over and eggs starting to hatch.
"Obviously [with] this hot weather we're seeing plenty of them getting out and about and basking in this sun," he said.
Whyte said snake numbers had not increased, but people had been reporting more sightings as new housing developments replaced bushland.
"They've got to find places to live, and our backyards are offering the perfect habitat," he said.
"Unfortunately, the gaps in our garage doors … provide the perfect entry points for a snake."
Kurt Whyte says it is important for snake catchers to have experience. Photo: ABC News / Supplied
If you see a snake, Whyte said, do not panic, do not try to hurt it and do not try to catch it. Keep an eye on it and ring a professional catcher.
The same applies when you find snake eggs, he said.
"We can get them removed [and] into an incubator and release when the time comes," Whyte said.
Sixteen snake eggs
That's exactly what Shane Hancock did last week when he came across 16 snake eggs on his Ipswich property, home to his business The Llama Farm.
His partner, Darren Degen, had been cutting tall, thick grass around the Pine Mountain property when he accidentally disturbed a carpet python incubating her eggs.
"She came writhing out and frightened the living daylights out of us because the last thing we needed to see was a big snake to suddenly come out of the grass," Hancock said.
They quickly realised the blades of the whipper snipper had hit her.
"We just felt absolutely sick to the core that she potentially was going to die," Hancock said.
"We had no way of seeing her until the blades swept past the grass."
The snake had slithered to hide inside a sandstone retaining wall, and that's when they found a "bowl of eggs sitting there exposed".
Shane Hancock and Darren Degen found 16 eggs from a carpet python on their property. Photo: ABC News / The Llama Farm
"Thankfully, the eggs hadn't been hit," Hancock said.
He called a reptile rescue group to help and said he was thankful two snake catchers were able to come quickly.
"The eggs were collected by the snake handler and taken away, and they're now being incubated," Hancock said.
He said once the eggs hatched, the baby snakes would be released back on the farm.
"We're more than happy to have [them]. We coexist with our wildlife," Hancock said.
"That's 16 little carpet pythons that will get a chance to live on."
He said, unfortunately, the mother had to be euthanised due to the extent of her injuries.
"If we'd known that that snake was there, we would never have gone anywhere near it," Hancock said.
'We are seeing more bites'
Tiarnah Kingaby was one of the snake catchers called to the Pine Mountain property.
She said that when she saw the eggs, they "looked fantastic" and that she was not worried about their "ongoing survival".
Kingaby said it was the time of year mother snakes would be sitting on their eggs in areas with long grass or vegetation.
"As soon as those eggs hatch, mum and babies will be on their own way," she said.
Tiarnah Kingaby says people should not try to move snakes themselves. Photo: ABC News / Tiarnah Kingaby
Kingaby, who has been working in the industry for more than six years around the Logan area, warned against people trying to move snakes themselves.
"[That's] the biggest thing that we're dealing with at the moment," she said.
"We see a lot more bites because of that."
It is a sentiment echoed by Whyte.
"We're just getting so many snake bites lately, and probably 90 per cent of them are people interfering with them," he said.
"Just call the professionals."
- ABC News
