Scarborough family wakes up to snake in bedroom

A Scarborough family say they were woken up early Tuesday morning to what they thought might have been a phone falling off a dresser but turned out to be a snake in their apartment.

“I was sleeping and then my husband said he heard something fall on the ground. So he got up and when he got up, he thought it was a phone so he went down to pick up the phone and then he held onto something soft,” Beverely Lewin, who lives in a building near Eglinton Avenue East and Kingston Road, told Global News on Wednesday.

“When he turned on the light, he realized it was a snake.”

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Lewin said she went to notify management immediately but that nothing was done right away because it was 4:30 a.m.

Later that morning, the apartment management company came by and attempted to get the snake out of the wall but were unsuccessful.

A self-proclaimed “snake man” arrived at the scene to try to track down the serpent.

Eventually, a portion of the wall was removed and the “snake man,” later identified as George Warner, removed the snake out of the wall.

Warner said he intends to make the serpent his pet.

Martina Ricci, a zookeeper at Reptilia Zoo, said they were made aware of the situation Wednesday morning and offered any help the family needed.

Ricci said the snake is a ball python — a common species of household pet snakes.

“They are docile and harmless to humans,” she said, adding they grow to no more than five feet and are not venomous.

She said they are known to be great “escape artists” as was seen in the this incident.

Lewin said she believes the snake belonged to a previous third-floor tenant in the building who kept dozens of snakes as pets.

She said he was forced to move out due to not paying rent and might not know one of the snakes escaped.