VIRGINIA BEACH, VA (WTRK/CNN) - It sounds like a bad joke or an urban legend but a man in Virginia Beach, VA, found a live snake in his toilet.
He and his roommate managed to catch it.
James Hooper said he was kind of scared “because that doesn't happen."
Hooper said he was just standing in his hallway Thursday when he saw it.
"I just turned around and looked at the toilet and I couldn't believe it," Hooper said. "I thought somebody was pranking me."
There was a snake in the toilet.
Its tiny head sitting just above the water.
Hooper and his wife called in their roommate Kenny Spruill from outside.
"I looked in the toilet and I was like whoa!" Spruill said.
The next question was how to get the snake out of the toilet.
"I tied a little noose at the end of the line and got the line around its head, and started tightening it up and said 'I think I got it,' " Spruill said.
"It got bigger and bigger as it came out," Hooper said.
Before long Spruill had a full snake on the end of his fishing line.
They put the snake in a bucket and called animal control.
"They thought I was pranking them," Hooper said.
Rebecca Franklin, an animal control supervisor said it was the first snake-in-a-toilet call they'd ever received.
"Probably a first,” Franklin said. “The snake in the toilet is one of those things where you think no it can't actually happen. Now it has."
After taking a few pictures with the guys Franklin said the officer brought the snake - what turned out to be a ball python - back.
The snake is not native to Virginia.
Franklin said she figured the snake was someone's pet that got out and slithered into the Hooper home following food.
Turns out the owners saw a post on Facebook and recognized their pet snake that went missing two weeks ago.
"On its way home to be put into a different enclosure, more secure," Franklin said.
It was a happy ending for everyone and a lesson Hooper and his family won't forget.
"Look down before you sit down," Hooper said.
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