ONE Sanderstead lady had a Sunday night shock when she went to use her bathroom and found a snake in her toilet.
It turned out the reptile belonged to another neighbour upstairs - but had been missing for four months.
Michael Eva said his neighbour, pensioner Mary Curtis, "looked like she'd seen a ghost" when she knocked on his door for help last night, but rather than a ghoul it was a black and white striped serpent she'd spotted.
Amazed at what she told him, Michael went next door to see for himself.
"This head, with the forked tongue, just poked out the toilet bowl, it freaked us all out," he said.
Weighing down the lid of the toilet to keep the snake inside, they retreated to Michael's flat to call for help.
But the RSPCA said they couldn't send anyone to help until the morning, and warned them to contact the police if it was venomous.
"I called the police and they said they haven't got any snake-catching equipment," said Michael.
When Michael popped back to try and identify the serpent, to see how dangerous it was, he was shocked to find it had moved to the bath.
"I thought how the hell did it get in there? And realised it must have gone through the u-bend and the plumbing."
They taped Mary's bathroom door shut and Michael, 34, taped up all the plumbing in his own flat, afraid it would find its way through the pipes and frighten his two-year-old daughter Jessica.
When the RSPCA arrived this morning, the snake was hiding under the bath.
After knocking on other doors in the flats near Sanderstead Railway station they discovered it belonged to neighbour Alex.
Alex said it had been missing for at least four months.
He helped coax the snake from its hiding spot with defrosted mice.
Michael said Alex told him it was a California Kingsnake, a non-venomous snake normally found in Mexico and the USA.
"I can sort of see the humour in it now, but at the time it was like 'there's a snake in the toilet!' It was frightening," he added.
