When far north Queenslanders hear bumps in the night it has more to do with the natural world than the supernatural.

As his business name suggests, David Walton from Cairns Snake Removals is an expert in catching snakes; but even for someone with years of experience, snakes that take up residence in roof cavities pose a significant challenge.

In his most recent encounter, Mr Walton said the residents of a Trinity Park home on Cairns' northern beaches called him to get some advice on what they could do about a supersized serpent living in their roof.

"The five-metre ones are always a bit of a handful; it had been peeing in there and causing a god-awful stench," Mr Walton said.

"There was no access into the ceiling so I told them 'you either pull your roof off or we be patient and it will come out at nighttime - the moment you see it, give me call'.

"So that's pretty much what happened. They spotted it hanging off the guttering and eyeballing the cat ... so on the phone they got."

Although the far north Queensland climate is not yet quite cool enough to encourage snakes into sustained sedentary periods, Mr Walton said roof cavities are amongst their favourite places to hang out in all weather conditions.

"It has elevation, it's got confinement, it's got temperature; it's got all the right ingredients," he said.

"If you go and curl yourself up in a tree during the day and try and sleep, the birds give you a hard time and you're exposed to the breeze and the rain.

"A nice insulated roof; you can't get any better."

As the weather continues to cool off, however, Mr Walton said it was not uncommon for him to receive calls from concerned residents hearing strange, thumping, scraping and sliding noises in their roofs through the night.

"I've had many occasions where we get up into the roof and there are five or six scrub pythons all shacking up for the winter," he said.

"When there's more than one it can be a little bit difficult being in a confined space, especially when they're large.

"Most of the time they want to try and get away, but when they're bailed up or in a confined space snakes will become a little bit defensive and that's when you can find yourself in a bit of strife."

Although pythons are a relatively placid snake, Mr Walton said they are known to bite if interfered with and one of a similar size to the one he caught this week (pictured above) can pose a very real threat to humans.

"A snake that size - in fact anything over about three metres - if it gets hold of you, you're going to have some serious difficulty in getting that snake off you," he said.

"If you start talking four or five metres; it will suffocate you within a matter of minutes if you're not careful."

As with all of the snakes he captures, Mr Walton said the five-metre scrub python that so nearly ate the cat was returned to more natural surroundings in nearby bushland.

"We've got to find an appropriate place to relocate it ... not too far that it's out of its element, but far enough away that it doesn't repeat offend," he said.

To view more pictures of the five-metre scrub python caught in Cairns this week, head to ABC Far North's Facebook page.