A Toronto man went for a bathroom break and ended up with a bathroom snake on Tuesday night.
Ramdat Punwassie lifted his toilet lid at about 10 p.m. Tuesday to find a one-metre-long python coiled up inside the bowl and looking back at him.
A native of Guyana, Punwassie has seen his share of big snakes in his home country and told CBC News he wasn’t scared at the discovery.
Instead he simply shut the bathroom door and made a quick call to 911.
“I didn't want to take chances,” Punwassie told CBC’s Lorenda Reddekopp on Wednesday. “I close the door and call for help. I see [snakes] in my country. This is the first time I see it here.”
Help arrived at the apartment building on Woolner Avenue — located near Jane Street and St. Clair Avenue West — in the form of two Toronto police officers. Very carefully they removed the python, which had by then made its way into Punwassie's bathtub. The snake is now under the care of the city's animal services department.
The same police officers who carried the snake out of Punwassie’s apartment had about nine hours earlier removed a corn snake of a similar size from another apartment in a different building, but on the same block of Woolner Avenue.
“Tenants found a snake had come through the wall. It was a three-foot corn snake,” Staff Sgt. Leslie Hildred told CBC News.
Police said neither snake was venomous, and they aren’t sure if the two snakes came from a common source.
“Like finding a stray dog, now we’re finding stray snakes,” said Hildred.
One tenant in Punwassie’s building was unnerved by the thought of a snake slithering anywhere near her apartment.
"It's not nice for me. I was living in Ottawa, I feel like going back,” she said.
woolner avenue jane street Toronto, ON
Glenford Miller lives in a building adjacent to Punwassie’s. He’s also glad the snake didn’t make an appearance in his building.
“A python? I can't image. Maybe I would have a heart attack to see something like that,” he said.
Police said the snakes will be turned over to a reptile zoo if the owners can't be located.
Ramdat Punwassie lifted his toilet lid at about 10 p.m. Tuesday to find a one-metre-long python coiled up inside the bowl and looking back at him.
A native of Guyana, Punwassie has seen his share of big snakes in his home country and told CBC News he wasn’t scared at the discovery.
Instead he simply shut the bathroom door and made a quick call to 911.
“I didn't want to take chances,” Punwassie told CBC’s Lorenda Reddekopp on Wednesday. “I close the door and call for help. I see [snakes] in my country. This is the first time I see it here.”
Help arrived at the apartment building on Woolner Avenue — located near Jane Street and St. Clair Avenue West — in the form of two Toronto police officers. Very carefully they removed the python, which had by then made its way into Punwassie's bathtub. The snake is now under the care of the city's animal services department.
The same police officers who carried the snake out of Punwassie’s apartment had about nine hours earlier removed a corn snake of a similar size from another apartment in a different building, but on the same block of Woolner Avenue.
“Tenants found a snake had come through the wall. It was a three-foot corn snake,” Staff Sgt. Leslie Hildred told CBC News.
Police said neither snake was venomous, and they aren’t sure if the two snakes came from a common source.
“Like finding a stray dog, now we’re finding stray snakes,” said Hildred.
One tenant in Punwassie’s building was unnerved by the thought of a snake slithering anywhere near her apartment.
"It's not nice for me. I was living in Ottawa, I feel like going back,” she said.
woolner avenue jane street Toronto, ON
Glenford Miller lives in a building adjacent to Punwassie’s. He’s also glad the snake didn’t make an appearance in his building.
“A python? I can't image. Maybe I would have a heart attack to see something like that,” he said.
Police said the snakes will be turned over to a reptile zoo if the owners can't be located.
