Forget about popping next door to borrow a cup of sugar - Ravenswood's Tanya Worth has more a exotic reason for getting to know her neighbours better...a two-metre plus carpet python taking in the spring sun on the fence separating their properties.
The giant reptile - described by local snake catcher Paul Kenyon as the biggest carpet python he's seen in Perth - surfaced during the weekend's 28-degree spike in weather.
"It was around lunch time last Saturday. It was such a nice day. I heard my neighbours out the front of the house and I went into the backyard to wash my dog, and that's when I saw it, and the neighbours were knocking on the door saying keep your dog inside, there's a snake," Ms Worth recounted.
"So I went out the front and we all had a chat together and my neighbours decided to call the snake catcher."
"We all stood back and we watched it climb onto the neighbour's roof and it got into the gutter. You could hear it slithering along the gutter. I didn't take my eyes off it until the snake catcher got there.
"I have had one small snake in my backyard, when we first moved here, but nothing like this.
"I do chat to my neighbours, we do know each other, but we know each other very well now!"
For Mr Kenyon, who runs his snake relocation business under the name of The Snake Whisperer, the python was one of four callouts he got last weekend as temperatures rose to more customary spring levels after an historically cold winter.
"Most tiger snakes people see are only three to four feet. I've seen dugites get up to seven-foot (213 centimetres) but I didn't know there were pythons this size in that area," he said.
"Over at Garden Island I've seen carpet pythons up to 3.5 metres...but I hadn't seen one this big where it was found. It was obviously a wild one as it had a few ticks on it."
At home, Mr Kenyon keeps non-venomous pythons, along with their potentially more dangerous cousins - tiger snakes, dugites, death adders and even brown snakes ("browns are like puppy dogs...I see dugites with way more attitude.").
He strongly advises people against actions that might make snakes strike out but has some slightly unconventional advice for anyone wanting to keep one stationary while waiting for a catcher to arrive.
"A wet towel thrown over the top of a three or four foot snake will make them stay put on most occasions," he explained.
