Gas leak mistaken for hissing snake

A couple who thought a hissing sound coming from underneath their floorboards was their missing pet snake were stunned to find they had a gas leak.

Wendy Hall and boyfriend John Marsey presumed the noise in the living room of their home in Hartlepool's Cornwall Street was missing pet Miles, a Miami corn snake which went missing in October last year.

However, when John went to lift up the floorboards, he discovered gas was leaking from a faulty pipe.



As Wendy, 39, John, 19, frantically called their landlord and the gas company, up popped Miles from underneath the floorboards.

Wendy, said: "It was the snake that saved our lives, because we wouldn't have checked under the floorboards if we didn't think it was him down there. Who knows what could have happened and it is amazing that he survived down there for so long.

"Miles must have been eating rats, mice and spiders while he was away because he is bigger now than he was when he went missing."