‘I screamed my lungs out’: Florida woman finds agitated python in her washing machine
Emily Visnic’s neighbor had been complaining about a mysterious hissing coming from her West Palm Beach apartment for at least a day, when on Friday the student nurse found a frightening surprise in her washing machine.
That afternoon, Visnic came home from her daily run to find an agitated python coiled up on top of her wet clothes.
“I screamed my lungs out and ran out,” she said Tuesday. “It was hissing very loudly.”
The 26-year-old — who just moved from Connecticut to Florida this January to attend Barry University’s graduate anesthesiology program — had noticed a dark, intricate pattern in the machine as she opened the lid, but said it didn’t occur to her that it could be a live animal until she reached inside.
“I thought to myself, ‘Did I put something in there that’s snakeskin?’” she said. “And then I felt it, and it was slimy and moving. It was so crazy.”
Thankfully, some maintenance workers were nearby to help, she said. The workers used a grabber to remove the snake from the machine.
Visnic said they were as shocked as she was to see a python in the building.
“They have never seen a snake on the premises in the 10 years they’ve worked here,” she said.
Visnic contacted animal control to find out how the snake had gotten into the building and if there could be others nearby.
She said a sergeant at the agency suggested that the snake may have been a pet that escaped, reached her apartment through the building’s vents and found its ideal moist environment in the machine.
Although releasing nonnative species like pythons is illegal in the state because of their negative impact on the local ecosystem, Burmese pythons — one of the animal’s largest breeds — became established in Florida as a result of released or escaped pets, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
In recent years, the Commission and the South Florida Water Management District have removed more than 5,000 Burmese pythons from South Florida. However, many still remain at large, they said.
“Every snake counts. Each invasive python eliminated represents hundreds of native Florida wildlife saved,” said SFWMD Governing Board Member “Alligator Ron” Bergeron in a statement in July.
The public can help control nonnative invasive wildlife by reporting sightings to the Exotic Species Hotline at 888-IveGot1 (888-483-4681), online at IveGot1.org or by using the free smartphone app IVEGOT1.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 7:45 PM.
