Two pest controllers were called to coax a 4ft (1.2m) orange snake into a bag after it was found by a tenant in her house boiler.

When Lee Marshall, 40, spoke to an "almost hysterical" young woman from Southsea, Portsmouth, claiming she had seen a snake he thought she was joking.

But he and a colleague discovered the creature slithering inside a boiler.

Mr Marshall, of pest control firm Contract Killers, took the snake home and has now contacted Marwell Zoo.

He said: "Not particularly being a fan of snakes, I tentatively climbed up onto the kitchen work surface and peered into the top of the boiler - just below ceiling height.

"I could just make out a bright orange tail.

"After five minutes of nervous probing around the boiler, I attempted to coax the snake out though the top of the boiler.

"At this stage, the snake very quickly slithered around the inside of the boiler and started disappearing through a hole in the wall above the boiler."

Fearing that it would escape into the cavity wall of the terraced house, Mr Marshall grabbed the snake's mid-section and started slowly pulling it out of the wall.

He and his colleague, Paul Lilley, then knocked on the front doors of neighbouring houses to find out if anyone had lost a snake.

"This was without success and the snake is now snuggled down quite happily in a large plastic container on my kitchen floor," added Mr Marshall.