Tim and Rebecca Booker-Baxter first found a note left on their doormat asking if anyone had seen a missing snake.
The pet had escaped from a neighbour’s house and got into the newlyweds’ terraced home via their upstairs toilet.
By the time they got back from their holiday in the US, tired from a 30-hour journey, the snake had become dehydrated and bad-tempered.
Mrs Booker-Baxter, 27, said: “We found this note that had been put through the door, which said there was a large snake missing, but it was harmless and friendly.
“Jokingly we had a look around the house to see if we could see it, not actually thinking it would be there. Then Tim went upstairs to go to the bathroom and he just said ‘there’s a really big snake in here’.”
She didn’t believe her husband, 32, but went upstairs to take a look for herself at their home in Eastney, Hants.
She said: “There, wrapped around the taps, was this massive snake. The toilet was dry and had marks on it where the snake had obviously used it to get in.”
Mrs Booker-Baxter contacted her neighbour who, with a lot of coaxing, managed to get the python safely into a box and take it back to its real home.
It’s not the first time she has had a close encounter with a snake.
“About two years ago I found a snake skin in the house, but no snake. I knocked on a few doors and my neighbour – the same one – had lost a corn snake,” she said. “I dined out on that story for years, and I’ll do the same with this one.”