Seeing a snake is skin crawling enough, but having one slither through her bedroom in northern Tasmania was something else for Jasmine Davenport.
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The 20-year-old Exeter woman was awaken by her dogs acting strangely on Wednesday morning last week before she glances up to see a four-foot Tiger snake peeping out from under her wardrobe.
Not to be slowed by a snoozy slumber, Ms Davenport immediately snapped a photo of the snake before grabbing her 14-week-old pup Lopez, who was pawing at her in fright.
Next, she wrangled her six-year-old Maremma called Halo and bundled up her bunny Theo before making her way to safe ground and calling her mum, Debbie.
"I was alone and my first priority was to get my fur babies safe," she said.
"Lopez and Halo saved the day."
While the rescue mission happened in a matter of seconds, after reflecting on the behaviour of her rabbit in the days immediately before the encounter, Ms Davenport believes the snake may have been her roommate for a day or two at least.
"My rabbit was acting weird for a few days and that's where my worries started about how long that snake has been in my room," she said.
But in the spur of the moment it was the well-known heroics of local snake catcher Ian Jessup of Snake Relocation who saved the day, and the dogs, once and for all.
Mr Jessup sprang into action and, aided by the nous of both of the Davenport women to take a photo of the snake and trap it in one room, had quickly apprehended the uninvited reptile.
"It was a good four-foot at least," he said.
"He was a big mature Tiger, he wasn't a small one."
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Mr Jessup was confident enough to confirm Ms Davenport's suspicions that she should have started charging rent to the slithery roommate and believed it would have been attracted to the house on one of the hotter days last week.
"It would have come in on one of those two really hot days, that's when it would've happened," he said.
"He would've suddenly gone, 'here's a nice cool spot'.
"I suggest it would've been in the house since then, three or four days."
Despite it having been a lean summer so far for Mr Jessup, he said the snakes he had been called to catch were large specimens.
"I haven't noticed a lot yet because the temperatures haven't been quite warm enough for the most part," he said.
"But this year the snakes are plump, in really good condition, because it was a really wet Spring with lots of frogs and they're all big fellas this year."
