HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - A woman in Hollywood was surprised to find an iguana inside of her toilet during her morning routine.
Michelle Bennett said she found the reptile as she lifted the lid to her toilet.
“I was getting up, and I put my glasses on, turned on the light,” Bennett said. “I threw the lid back down. I died a million deaths at that point. Seriously, my heart was beating so fast.”
Trapper Harold Rondan arrived at Bennett’s townhouse and identified the intruder as a Mexican spiny-tailed iguana. He added the reptiles come in through vents in the roof.
“They get curious while they’re up there,” Rondan said. “They see a vent. They fall in. There’s no way for them to come out, so they just follow it until it ends up in the toilet.”
Bennett said before the trapper got there, she tried everything she could to get the iguana out.
“I started flushing my toilet, repeatedly trying to flush it, and it went in a little bit, and it came back out just a little bit more,” Bennett said.
“Like if you’re going down the slide as a kid and the kid doesn’t want to go through, they stop,” Rondan said. “Pretty much what they’re doing. The pressure is not strong enough to push them through.”
Rondan then arranged sticks on the toilet to give the reptile something to grab onto. Once it grabbed the sticks, that’s when he captured it.
Rondan added that he gets several calls like Bennett’s per month. He said a mesh cover over the roof vent is all that is needed to keep it from happening.
Bennett said before the iguana paid her a visit, she was aware it could happen.
“As a result of that, I had been continually making sure that I kept my toilet seat down,” she said. “That’s a little too close for comfort.”
Bennett said she will put the mesh cover over her roof vent sooner rather than later.
In Florida, iguanas are considered an invasive species, so businesses like Rondan’s can dispose of the animal. Also in Florida, iguanas can be killed, but it must be done humanely.
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