An Australian man will be putting his toilet seat down in the future after discovering a python almost twice his size curled up in the bowl.

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Snake wrangler Chris Peberdy was called to a house in rural Virginia near Darwin in far northern Australia after the owner, Erik Rantzau, spotted a 3-metre-long (almost 10 feet) carpet python in his toilet.

Peberdy told Reuters: "It's not unusual to find snakes of that size in the tropics but you don't find usually them in toilets.

"He must have come up through a drain. He was cruising around the house at night and returning to the toilet by day."

Peberdy said the owner lives on a rural property where snakes are respected, so he left the python alone and used a different bathroom until it could be safely removed.

It took the snake wrangler four trips out to the house to catch the carpet python, which is non-venomous and kills its prey by constriction.

"He was so tightly curled into the pipes that I could not move him but eventually he popped out far enough for me to catch him," said Peberdy who is called out to catch up to 1,000 snakes a year.

The captured snake was released back into the bush about 2.5 kms (1.5 miles) from the house.

Peberdy had some advice for people living in that area: "Keep the toilet seat down and look before you sit!"