Unlike most teenagers, Nick Smith does not play music loud in his bedroom - he is worried it might frighten his babies.

The 19-year-old shares his room with a couple of corn snakes and their 22 offspring.

Some of the creatures have tried to bite him but their nips have not stopped his fascination for the reptiles, which started when he was a toddler.

But, yesterday, things at home were not all happy families after one of the hatchlings escaped.

The tiny snake wriggled out of his plastic box and ran around Nick's bedroom.

After spending hours in a fruitless search, Nick gave up.

He said: "I chased it round the back of the units and thought I had managed to barricade it in.

"But the next day when I came back it was nowhere to be seen."

The two-week-old fugitive, known only as number one, has still not returned.

But its brothers and sisters are happily hiding under kitchen paper or in toilet rolls in their boxes.

Nick said: "They have to have somewhere to hide otherwise they would have psychological problems. When they are small, they are easily frightened."

Their fear is not surprising considering the attitude of their parents - Sam and Missy - who live in a wooden and glass snake tank, called a vivarium, on the other side of the room.

Nick has to keep them away from their new borns in case the pair feel a little peckish and try to eat them.

There is no cleaning up to do apart from occasionally replacing a piece of kitchen paper lining the boxes or picking up shedded skin.

Nick, a former pupil at Longhill School, Rottingdean, said: "Snakes are easier to look after than a rabbit."

Most his family have accepted Nick's non-poisonous pets. Mum Sue has even christened a few of the hatchlings, but most are only known as numbers. She said: "Nick has always been fascinated by snakes since he was small."

But his dad was not too pleased when the snakes, native to South America, moved into their home in Rodmell Avenue, Saltdean.

Nick, who had his first two snakes when he was just 12, plans to keep a couple of the hatchlings and sell the rest. They usually cost about £25 from breeders.

He said: "When I have my own place I will definitely have pythons.

"At the moment they are too big for my bedroom."