Reptile : The 6ft-long albino northern pine snake was found curled up on top of a bath mat on a radiator . A teenage girl was shocked to discover a huge albino snake curled up on top of the radiator in her bathroom . Hannah Brierley , 16 , thought her mother was playing a prank when she spotted the six foot-long northern pine snake on a bath mat which was hung up to dry at her home in Rochdale , Manchester . She stared at the reptile for a few minutes until it moved and quickly called for her 40-year-old mother , Karen Marriott , to come upstairs . Mrs Marriott attempted to call the RSCPA at 7am yesterday morning but after she was unable to get through she panicked and dialled 999 . She said : 'Hannah was calm at first . She ca n't even deal with spiders , but I do n't think she thought it was real . 'She 'd been looking at it for a few minutes until it moved . She thought I was having a joke . ' I felt like a wally dialling 999 but I did n't know what to do . I 'm frightened because I do n't know how it got in . 'It was like something out of a film . I did n't know whether to laugh or cry . Everybody needed a wee , but we could n't go . ' Craig Wallace , a detective based at Rochdale police station , overheard the control room call and although it 's not a police matter , he offered to help as he has experience with keeping snakes . Det Con Wallace used a pillowcase to capture the white snake and took it back to the station , before being transferred into the care of the RSPCA . The officer added : ' I keep snakes so I know a lot about them . It was a northern pine snake . They can give a nasty bite , but they 're not venomous . 'If it did bite you , you would struggle to get it off . I put my hand through a pillow slip then got the back of it 's head and wrapped it up . ' He believes the reptile may be a family pet which has either escaped or been set free and slithered into the house on during the recent warm weather . Scroll down for video . Shocked : It was found by 16-year-old Hannah Brierley who thought at first it might be a prank by her mother . Terrifying : Her mother Karen Marriott could n't get hold of the RSPCA so called the police to help them . Rescue : Det Con Craig Wallace , who keeps snakes , overheard the call and although it was n't a police matter , he wanted to help the terrified family and used a pillowcase to capture it . DC Wallace added : 'It 's been a nice few days with people leaving doors and windows open . It is n't uncommon for them to go through the loft space or floorboards . He added : ' I wanted to keep it as a station pet , but no-one would sit near me . ' The RSPCA later attended Rochdale police station and the snake is now being cared for by the animal charity . Escape : The officer believes the snake may be a family pet that has escaped or been discarded and could have got into the house through an open door or window in the recent warm weather . A regular pine snake , of which the northern pine is a subspecies , in the wild . They vary in colouring . The northern pine snake , or pituophis melanoleucus - a subspecies of the common pine snake - are endemic to south eastern states in the United States , including Alabama and Kentucky . In the wild , colours can vary from to deep-brick to a wine red . Captive varieties tend to be amelanistic or 'albino ' , which are descendants of a specimen hatched from a wild-collected clutch of eggs . The find occurred near the eastern edge of the Pine Barrens in Ocean County , New Jersey , in the early to mid-1980s . They generally prefer to live in areas with pine flatwoods , sandy pine-oak woodlands or cultivated fields . Pine snakes are carnivorous animals and mainly feed on mice , rats , moles and other small animals . Captive-bred specimens docile behaviour makes them perfect pets and their voracious appetite and rapid growth are some of the reasons for their popularity . Most hatchlings , which are around 12 to 16 inches , will feed immediately and though they may strike and hiss at first , with frequent handling they usually calm down . Adults , which grow between 4ft and 6ft , can be more difficult to calm down if the animal was not handled frequently as a hatchling or juvenile .
Hannah Brierley , 16 , initially thought 6ft-long snake was a prank by mother . But when it suddenly moved she realised the northern pine snake was real . She shouted mother Karen Marriott who panicked and called police for help . Det Con Craig Wallace used a pillowcase to capture it and taken to RSPCA . Believed to have got in through window or door in the recent warm weather .