A Los Angeles woman pulled into the parking garage at her apartment complex and quickly noticed something unusual atop the dumpster — a 20-foot python.
Teresa Sanchez said she arrived home from work on Tuesday when she saw the snake lying on top of the large dumpster inside the garage at The Piero Apartments downtown.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Sanchez told KTLA-TV. “I was like, ‘Am I in Florida? What’s going on here?'”
Sanchez said she couldn’t get through to animal control, and police told her snake wrangling is not one of their usual duties.
Joseph Hart from SoCal Reptile Hunter was summoned to the scene by another witness. The other woman said the snake appeared ill and she suspected it had been intentionally abandoned in the trash.
Hart took the snake away to be examined by a veterinarian and rehabilitated.
Pythons are not native to the United States, but multiple species of the snakes are popular pets. The Oak Park Fire Department was called out in late July to rescue a ball python that slithered away from its owner on a CTA Green Line train and tucked itself away in a control box panel.
