Technicians in shock after snake found in Sydney air conditioning unit
A pair of air conditioning technicians have had the shock of their careers after finding a python curled up inside the circuitry of a unit they were disassembling in Sydney's inner-west.
The animal, almost two metres in length, unfortunately didn't survive his adventure inside the air-conditioning unit of the Earlwood home and had likely been electrocuted a few weeks ago, said resident David Marchant.
Mr Marchant, 47, said he'd noticed a smell coming from the unit but thought it might have been a nearby rat until the unit was opened up.
He was home to oversee the installation of the new unit on Thursday afternoon, after the old one gave up the ghost a few weeks back and he was informed it wasn't worth fixing. He now suspects the python may have been involved.
"The installers were just relieved it wasn’t alive. At first they weren’t 100 per cent sure it was actually dead. I said no, look, nothing alive smells like that."
The technician said in his 18 years of installing air conditioning he’d never seen anything like it, Mr Marchant said. His assistant was lost for words.
"The young offsider was so shocked he could barely speak, he just kept shaking his head."
The family lives in Earlwood in Sydney's inner-west, but their home backs onto bushland around the Cooks River, which is where Mr Marchant thinks the snake must have come from.
Although in five years, it's the first one they've seen.
"Our next door neighbour said they’d seen a carpet python inside their yard because they have chickens."
The rest of the family, who weren't at home for the big reveal, had mixed reactions to the news. Mr Marchant's son, 11, "thought it was cool". His wife and daughter, not so much.
"I rang my wife Trish just after it." Mr Marchant said. "She screamed and said we have to move."