Boscombe resident shocked to discover snake in his apartment

Graham Christopher, 47, was shocked to find the snake in his flat in Boscombe on June 7 after returning from work.

Although he didn’t pay much attention at first, Graham said he got “absolutely wet” when he first saw it move.

Graham said: “I put my clipboard on the sofa to do some paperwork, made myself a coffee, went back to save my clipboard and saw this little thing.

“I didn’t think anything of it, then I sat down to do my paperwork and in the corner it started moving and I got completely wet.”

Not a fan of snakes, Graham called his daughter who is taking an animal management course before attempting to capture it.

He said: “By the time I had a bath and everything else, they had gotten into my sofa. I ended up taking it apart and found no signs of it.

“It had come up inside, where the cushions are, so I gently shook it and it fell to the floor and just as I was putting a bathtub on it, it flew away.”

Graham took the snake to Boscombe’s reptile store, The Reptilarium, who have been caring for it ever since, waiting an hour to claim it.

However, staff member Matt Norris said it was not uncommon for them to be in the wild and breeding.

He said: “We get a lot of them because they are escape artists. They are very intelligent and find their way out very easily.

“Because a lot of them have escaped, they’re breeding, so there’s a lot of them around, so they’re actually not anyone’s pets.”

Matt reassured that the snake is a docile breed that is not venomous and that, at ten inches long, this particular snake was still a baby.

The Repitilarium will hold the snake for a week before repatriating it.