A DELIGHTED pet owner has been given a big squeeze by the reptile he lost seven months ago.

Raymond Myers is now reunited with the 5ft snake Jake, who vanished during a family party – only to turn up in his terrified neighbour’s bathroom.

Relieved Mr Myers, 22, feared Jake’s homecoming may never happen as RSPCA officers doubted for a time whether the snake really belonged to him.

The reptile next-door neighbour, Gee Ruzvidzo, was confronted with last week was a California Kingsnake, but Mr Myers believed he had mislaid a Corn snake. Both are nonvenomous.

But in a case of mistaken identity, it was established earlier this week that the intruder really was Jake.

Mr Myers satisfied RSPCA officers that he was the snake’s owner after telling them about specific markings on Jake’s body.

He said: “I’m thrilled Jake is back home. I can’t believe it.”

Jake was 3ft long and had a docile temperament when he escaped last October from his home in Birkhall Road in the Thorntree area of Middlesbrough.

Mr Myers is concerned that that Jake’s gentle nature may have changed for the worse because of his period out of captivity.

“We used to handle him a lot, but we are going to have to see what he is like with us now,” he said.

Ms Ruzvidzo, 27, was woken to the sound of toiletry bottles in her bathroom being rattled in the early hours of last Thursday. She screamed when she saw the snake sprawled out along the windowsill and feared for the safety of her five-year-old daughter, sleeping in the next room.