Instead of dishes, a South Coast woman got the fright of her life when she found a green mamba in her kitchen sink, just as she was about to start washing dishes.

Crocworld Conservation Centre was recently called out to help with the rescue of the green mamba after a Sezela resident in KwaZulu-Natal alerted the team.

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“I received a phone call from a young man out in Sezela about a large snake that had been discovered in the kitchen,” says Wade Kilian, reptile curator at Crocworld Conservation Centre in Scottburgh.

“Apparently, his mother had been packing away dishes before doing another load when she spotted the snake climbing the curtain rail. It then took refuge in the kitchen sink beneath a pink bucket, which is where we discovered it.”

Kilian says he arrived to find a very nervous, machete-wielding, elderly woman shouting about a snake.

The Crocworld team managed to safely remove the snake from the home, after which they released the green mamba back into the wild, far away from human habitation.

“We really encourage residents not to approach or attempt to kill any snake species, but rather to contact us to safely remove the animal. Not only are some of these species threatened and therefore, protected by law, but most snake attacks happen when humans try to move or kill them,” says Killian.