Eastern brown snake found in printer tray at Windsor Toyota

Windsor Toyota Registration Clerk Jade Bowen, in Windsor in north-west Sydney, opened the paper tray to load it with more paper to print out a car registration, when she saw the snake hiding inside.

Joel Aquilina, Used Car Assistant Manager, who was working with Ms Bowen when she found the reptile, said she thought it was a rubber snake and asked him if he had put it there.

"I'm a bit of a prankster and she asked me about it and I said 'I didn't put it there'. She started shaking. She was going to pick it up and throw it," Mr Aquilina told ACM.

"It was crazy. It was inside the paper tray. I think it had been there for 10 days because we had some cleaners tell us they saw a snake and we couldn't find it."

Mr Aquilina said the newly-refurbished Windsor Toyota office was "the last place" you'd expect to find a snake, though the car yard backs onto bushland.

"We obviously get rodents and mice. But if you walked through here, you wouldn't think the snake was in the printer - we've been printing paper off all the time," he said.

"I said to [Jade] 'go and buy a lottery ticket as you're very lucky not to have been bitten'."

The Windsor Toyota team called Professional Snake Handler at Australian Snake Catchers, Sean Cade, to remove the snake.

"They rang me and said 'we've got this snake in the printer'. I asked them to send me a photo and it was an eastern brown," Mr Cade told ACM.

"It was a dangerous situation for [the clerk]. Lucky she saw it as, if she had frightened or startled the snake, there's high potential she could have been bitten. That's the second most venomous snake in the world."

Mr Cade said the snake in question was "a bit fiery", a bit over a metre long and most probably about four or five years old, and therefore "a teen".

He said it was an unusual situation for many reasons, not least because the snake had climbed off the ground to get in the printer.

"I haven't got one a metre off the ground in a printer before. It's a bit random - it's not something you see everyday. They tend to stay on the ground," he said.

"All snakes can climb, and all snakes can swim, but our venomous snakes choose not to do that. I don't know if it was the activity from [the office workers] or it was because it was out in the open [in the office], it wanted a place to feel secure."

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Mr Cade said venomous snakes including eastern browns, common death adders and red-bellied black snakes could all be found in the Hawkesbury. He has also had call-outs for diamond pythons, blue-tongued lizards and lace monitors.

"If you encounter a snake, don't approach it. If you're not sure what it is, treat it as venomous and don't touch it," Mr Cade said.

"Keep kids and pets away from any snake you find. If you can, keep an eye on where the snake goes and call a licensed professional.

"If you're bitten, scratched or you're not sure, call triple-0."