Mum shocked to discover 5ft

Lisa Thatcher, 39, called in a plumber after her kitchen flooded and was 'horrified' to see the cause was a venomous snake

A MUM-of-three was shocked to discover a 5ft-long poisonous snake had blocked a pipe in her washing machine.

Lisa Thatcher, 39, called in a plumber after the device flooded her kitchen three times in a week.

Baffled engineer Roy Wiley used a Henry Hoover to suck out the blockage and found an adder slithering around a dust bag of the vacuum cleaner.

His last-ditch attempt - which successfully fixed the problem - left them both wondering how the snake managed to get inside the washing machine in Dover, Kent.

Last night Lisa, a support coordinator for the homeless, said: "I was just working away at the table and

Roy said 'there's definitely a blockage.' "All of a sudden he says: 'It's a snake.' "I said 'what?' I looked over at the washing machine.

"I could see the body of this snake and I couldn't believe it.

"I ran out of the way, sort of laughing, thinking that's not real." Mature student Lisa thinks the snake was at least 5ft-long and has handed it over to a local animal charity.

She added: "It's been a bit of a mystery, whether it's been the plumbing or the machine.

"I've recently been to Thailand and didn't have a snake incident all the time I was there."

Plumber Roy had the unbelievable scenes filmed on Friday afternoon and sent a video to the landlady of the property, who believed it to be a poisonous adder.

Part of the video shows the red and orange marked reptile, Britain's only venomous snake, eerily slivering back into the safety of the vacuum after he removed the hoover's pipe.

Adders' bites are very painful and require immediate medical attention as they use their venom to immobilise prey.

In the video Roy is seen moving the snake from the cleaner to a clear plastic container and tells the camera: "I hope it's not vicious."

Roy, 49, added: "I thought I'll cut into the pipe and I just whacked my hoover in there.

"And I thought 'there's something up there'.

"To my surprise there was this. The snake was just trapped in the middle of the machine and I ended up sucking it out with the hoover."

Roy was able to cope with the horror of finding a snake in a washing machine - and pulling it out of a hoover bag - because he deals with fear on a daily basis.

Roy, who also coaches clients on getting over their phobias, said mum Lisa was 'absolutely terrified' of the creature.

He said: "Everyone is scared of snakes, we see something like that and it makes us feel fearful - but fear is irrational most of the time."