Living next to a large angophora tree, a family of five was used to hearing strange noises in their home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Possums once crawled across its thick branches and temporarily made their home in the roof, and one even fell through a skylight.
Phoebe Ghorayeb had been reading to her kids, Valentina, Siddy, and Zaki, in an upstairs room when they heard an “almighty thump”. Her husband ran down to investigate.
“My husband came downstairs to check it out. And there was nothing suspicious down there, so we just ignored it,” she told Yahoo News.
What she’d heard was a venomous Australian snake that had caused devastation wherever it’s been introduced. In Guam alone, it has caused the extinction of 10 species.
Reptile handler Chris Williams noted it’s known as the island where no birds sing, because they’ve all been eaten.
“They just went completely scorched earth on the place,” the Urban Reptile Removal founder told Yahoo News.
Strange substance discovered in kids’ room
Two days after hearing the thump, Phoebe found something completely unexpected when she went into her girls’ room to make their beds.
“I noticed a small poo on the floor. I thought that’s definitely not one of ours,” she quipped.
“And next to the poo was some yellow crusty substance.”
Chris Williams came to investigate after strange noises were heard in an Allambie Heights home. Source: Urban Reptile Removal
It was unlike the possum or mouse poo she’d seen in her yard before. Besides, they would have fled the house had they known of the predator inside.
Whatever creature was leaving it behind had been moving around the house, but as she continued to clean, she also found evidence of the yellow substance upstairs.
Around a week later, her daughters had a friend over for a playdate, and they decided to rearrange the room.
Her bed had been pulled away from the wall, and Phoebe decided to use it as an opportunity to clean away the pencils and books that had been lost behind it.
“I reached down to pick something up and saw what I thought was a toy, but when I moved a light which was on top of it, it moved,” Phoebe said.
When the snake moved, Phoebe immediately knew it wasn’t a toy. And she called Chris Williams for help. Source: Urban Reptile Removal
Kids excited by creature they’d shared their room with
When Phoebe moved from the United Kingdom to Australia 15 years ago, she thought she would see more kangaroos. But instead, it’s more common to see reptiles, and in this case, it was a 180cm-long snake.
After hurrying her kids downstairs, she called a professional reptile handler for help. He identified the animal as a brown tree snake, which is known to be mildly venomous.
“When I arrived, they took me upstairs, and behind the Mickey Mouse bed, was the snake having a snooze,” Chris told Yahoo News.
“The kids were pretty excited about who they’d been sharing their bedroom with.”
The strange yellow casings that Phoebe had found were simply the remnants of the brown tree snake’s meals, likely urates or waste.
While the species has caused devastation overseas, it’s a natural part of the Australian bush and a sign of a thriving ecosystem.
Only larger snakes are strong enough to inject venom into humans, and they are not considered particularly dangerous.
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