The number of one of Australia's deadliest snakes is on the rise in Alice Springs thanks to three years of consistent summer rainfall.
Rex Neindorf, a local snake catcher with more than 20 years of experience, said this was the busiest he had ever been and issued a warning for people to be snake smart.
Late last year, Mr Neindorf caught eight western brown snakes in one day.
He said snakes had taken advantage of the summer rainfall in the region and had been breeding accordingly.
Higher rainfall means more vegetation, increasing available prey and providing favourable conditions for snake breeding.
"When we get good seasons, what happens is the reptiles are able to double clutch," he said.
"They lay one clutch [of eggs and then] they'll build up their body reserves and lay a second clutch — and that's been happening for a couple of years now."
Mr Neindorf said as a result, many two-year-old western brown snakes were making their way into places where they shouldn't be — down plug holes, behind ovens and even inside furniture.
Recently, he went to a job where the snake had worked its way into a couch in a suburban living room.
"They're very lucky they saw [the snake] because kids sit on that couch all the time to play games," he said.
When Mr Neindorf arrived to extract the snake, it refused to show itself.
"The next thing was just to search for it — you never put your hands anywhere," Mr Neindorf said.
"We had to poke around for a fair while, probably about 10 minutes until the snake appeared on the opposite side [of the couch]"
Mr Neindorf said he had found snakes in children's shoes before.
"The kids are taking their shoes off before they went into the class," he said.
"And the snake got right inside the shoe — so you've got to be ultra careful about these sort of things."
He said it was important to keep snakes outside by doing simple things like keeping doors shut or installing rubber strips on the bottom of doors.
