It seems like once or twice a year we hear a story like this one about someone finding a snake in a toilet. In fact, a Google search also uncovers reports about baby alligators, fish and other aquatic creatures ending up in someone’s bathroom, as well as an occasional non-aquatic animal such as a possum or scorpion.
Although most of these stories are played for humor, on occasion people have been bitten in the worst possible place by a snake or some other nasty critter hanging out where you never would expect anything to wallow. That is no laughing matter. Our world has enough hazards. How concerned should you be about this one?
As the news stories detail, these things do happen once in a while. Most investigations find that the cause can be traced to someone in the household attempting to flush away an unwanted pet reptile. The creature may disappear from view momentarily, but it’s hard to flush an animal of any size all the way down a drain line. Things that slither and swim will have little trouble making their way back to where they were dumped. Keep this in mind if you are a fickle reptile aficionado.
Sometimes it is not the fault of anyone in the home. It’s unlikely but possible for certain creatures to enter a home via a sewer system, although you would think this would be a very demented animal. Then again, when you think of some of the behaviors indulged in by humans of supposedly superior intelligence, why should we expect animals of lower brain capacity to have more sense.
As household hazards go, this one ranks pretty close in probability to a meteorite crashing through your roof. I suppose the risk might be somewhat greater for residents of Florida, Louisiana, and other swampy places, but here in Southern California we have far more pressing concerns – like staying alive on our roadways. Suffice to say that after thousands of cumulative service calls, nobody at Dutton Plumbing has ever encountered any creature larger than a dead insect in anyone’s toilet.
All of us here have our fingers crossed that we keep this record intact.
The only snakes we want to see in a toilet are the so-called “plumbers’
snakes” that we use to rod out clogged drain lines.
We hate to say it, but if you do come across a live reptile in your toilet,
that would be one of the few times we would really prefer that you
call a competitor to solve the problem!
