A Gloucester man, Marcus Hobby, 31 lives in his three-bedroom semi with his family alongside his awkward pet choice, an 18ft Burmese python called Hexxie.
Marcus, an IT worker, purchased Hexxie from a pet shop eight years ago when she was just eight inches long.
Since then, she has grown to weigh 17 stone and needs several people to lift her.
She could squeeze a human to death, but Marcus is confident she will never strike – although he doesn’t handle her when the his sons, aged four and one, are nearby.
The largest ever measured was 18.8ft, but Marcus says last time he checked Hexxie was already 18ft, and since then she has grown.
He’s reluctant to anaesthetise her for the official measurement until she’s stopped growing.
Marcus, of Tewkesbury, said: ‘I think people are so scared of them because they think they are going to kill them but if people come around I can talk to them all day long about snakes to reassure them. ‘[But] I would not get her out with the boys around. I would only do it while they were in bed or another room.
‘I don’t think she’d be dangerous towards them but you have to use your common sense and I’m a responsible pet owner.’ Hexxie lives alongside another smaller snake, Monty, and the family dog Shiloh, a Husky. Hexxie weighs 17 stone (Picture: SWNS) Marcus said both snakes have gone for him before – although not for a while. He added that the nearest Hexxie has come to attacking him was when he had to apply iodine to a skin infection.
He said: ‘She went for me. Not properly – more of a back off, get away type of thing. She’s nipped but she’s never latched on. ‘Her mouth is full of of hundreds of pin shaped teeth like fish hooks. If she gets hold of you, you cannot pull your hand out because all the teeth are going the wrong way.’
