'Nightmare' surprise at dinner sends mum and kids running from home
A mum says her “worst nightmare came true” after she discovered a snake in her home while her children were eating dinner.
Andrea Dodd lives with her husband and two children just 15 kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD in Glen Iris, and never thought a reptile would be loitering in her “concrete jungle”.
But just two weeks before Christmas, she discovered an angry two-metre tiger snake in her laundry.
“I couldn’t believe this was happening,” she told Yahoo News.
“My kids were sitting in the dining room eating dinner after a really hot spell and I had the back door open but the screen door closed. There was a little gap where the wire had been broken.
“I walked in the laundry to put something in the washing basket and saw this snake. It was horrific, it was my worst nightmare come true.”
Ms Dodd said the snake was poking its tongue out as it slithered towards her.
“I started to panic. It was heading straight to where kids were eating dinner,” she said.
The mother grabbed her two-year-old daughter and five-year-old son and ran outside. She called her husband who was at the gym before calling a snake catcher out to retrieve the reptile.
Her husband rushed home while the family waited for the snake catcher and bravely went inside to look for it.
“He was looking under the TV and couldn’t see it but then he heard hissing and saw it wrapped around his bike under the staircase,” Ms Dodd said.
“He bolted outside then it slithered off the bike and hid under our staircase among boxes and Christmas decorations.”
It was just days before the family planned to put up their Christmas tree and Ms Dodd was thankful they caught it before they pulled out the baubles and tinsel.
Ms Dodd said the snake catcher told her the reptile was likely looking for water.
She was thankful she had her keys close to the door and her phone in her pocket so she could rush out of the house as quickly as possible with her kids.
“It’s a blessing it was me who found it,” she said.
“Who knows if it could have gone upstairs and landed in someone’s bed.”
