Nope, Not A Prank, There’s A Python In Your Toilet

Most plumbing companies have come across a wide-ranging list of strangeness during their careers in the plumbing services. Usually, residential plumbing services see issues that are wholly human-caused. Though, sometimes, there are exceptions.

One such exception happened to a Virginia Beach resident named James Hooper. He went to the bathroom in his house and, upon lifting the seat up, saw a snake sitting there in the water. Thinking it was a prank, he chuckled at first, but then looked closer. It was certainly not a prank.

“The snake was moving around, its tongue doing a slithering thing,” he reported later after he had inspected further.

A lot of people would’ve opted for bathroom remodeling after destroying it with fire, but Hooper was made of more level-headed stuff. He and his roommate fashioned a loop attached to a fishing pole and retrieved the snake from the toilet, putting it unharmed into a bucket.

Not being herpetologists, they didn’t know if the reptilian intruder was deadly or harmless, so they didn’t chance it and called animal control. They found out it was a Ball Python, which is non-venomous but also doesn’t exist in the wild anywhere near the area. This puzzled Hooper, his roommate, and animal control.

“It’s what’s called a ‘pastel pied,’ so it has white on its body as well. It’s a lighter color. Nothing that’s a wild snake here looks anything like what this snake looks like,” said the curious animal control officer about the mysteriously placed snake.

After taking a picture that went viral, the family who owned the snake reached out and said that it had been missing for weeks. No one knows how it ended up in Hooper’s toilet, several miles away, but there it was. Plumbing has been around since 2,500 B.C., and in Virginia, it’s not that old, but the wily ways of underground sewer systems can be readily accessed by slithering serpents if they so desire. Though, it’s most likely that the snake got into the house somehow and decided the toilet was a good place to rest and stay cool.

Everything worked out for Mr. Hooper and the python, but if you find a snake in your toilet call animal control before reaching out to plumbing companies. That’s a little outside our realm of expertise. Anything else toilet repair related, we’ve got you covered.