Maddison Oakes, seven, calmly deals with deadly brown snake in family's Flagstone home

Maddison Oakes, seven, almost trod on the snake in the family home at Flagstone on Saturday, when she mistook it for her cat's tail.

The snake was just metres from a handful of her cousins when Maddison found it in the Bushman Drive house.

After realising it wasn't Georgia's tail, Maddison stood still while it went into a bedroom.

She ran to tell parents Kirsty Johnson and Josh Oakes, who searched for the snake before finding it in their bed.

"It was in our bed, across the pillows," Ms Johnson said.

"It was the whole width of the king-sized bed, and a bit more curled over the side.

"It was quite lucky she spotted it, otherwise we would have gone to bed with a brown snake."

Such was Maddison's calm nature, her parents doubted there was a snake in the house.

"We didn't even believe her at first, as they had been playing with toy snakes," Ms Johnson said.

"We're glad it was her who found it and not one of the little ones."

It isn't the first time Maddison has come across a snake.

Ms Johnson said she had to be trained from an early age that snakes were not a good mix with kids.

It came after Maddison tried to chase baby black snakes when they hatched in the yard.

"She used to chase after them. She thought they were friendly," Ms Johnson said.

Snake catcher Tanzen Lilith, who was called into wrangle the bedroom brown, praised Maddison for her cool head in alerting her parents.

"She did great. Kept her cool and told the adults," Ms Lilith said.

"She was awesome. An absolute sweetheart."

Ms Lilith, who runs South Side Snake Services, is getting more callouts as mating season ramps up.

"The males have two things on their mind at the moment: Mating and food," she said.

Ms Lilith said it was a myth that venomous snakes could not climb.

"I get them up high all the time," she said.

"They can climb just fine, it's just a lot of the time, they don't think about climbing."

Ms Lillith said she retrieved a red-bellied black snake from an air conditioning unit during a call out a few years ago.

"This was about 15 centimetres from the ceiling," she said.

"Someone had to hold the ladder while I got the snake out of the air-conditioning."

Brown snakes were often described as aggressive, she said, but that was not always true.

"Brown snakes are like any other snake or animal. They have different personalities," Ms Lilith said.

"All they want to do is get away.

"It is really important for people to understand that if there is a chance they will get away, that's what they will do.

"I wish they would chase me. It would make my job easier."

I would describe them as a highly reactive snake. That's different to aggressive."

Reports of brown snakes chasing people were exaggerations.

"Some will do a mock chase, where they chase you for a couple of metres, but not because they want to catch you, but they want you to go away," Ms Lilith said.

Ms Lilith services Greenbank, Jimboomba, Logan, Ipswich and Brisbane.

Phone 0408 882-225.

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