man finds python almost twice his size

..in his toilet.

SYDNEY, Sept 7 (Reuters Life!) - An Australian man will be
putting his toilet seat down in the future after discovering a
python almost twice his size curled up in the bowl.

Snake wrangler Chris Peberdy was called to a house in rural
Virginia near Darwin in far northern Australia after the owner,
Erik Rantzau, spotted a 3-metre-long (almost 10 feet) carpet
python in his toilet.

"It's not unusual to find snakes of that size in the tropics
but you don't find usually them in toilets," Peberdy told
Reuters.

"He must have come up through a drain. He was cruising around
the house at night and returning to the toilet by day."

Peberdy, who runs Darwin-based snake handling company Snake
N.T., said the owner lives on a rural property where snakes are
respected, so he left the python alone and used a different
bathroom until it could be safely removed.

It took the snake wrangler four trips out to the house to
catch the carpet python, which is non-venomous and kills its prey
by constriction.

"He was so tightly curled into the pipes that I could not
move him but eventually he popped out far enough for me to catch
him," said Peberdy who is called out to catch up to 1,000 snakes
a year.

The captured snake was released back into the bush about 2.5
kms (1.5 miles) from the house.

Peberdy had some advice for people living in that area: "Keep
the toilet seat down and look before you sit!"