Hi, welcome to your worst nightmare. Two women who work in an office building in downtown San Diego found a 5-foot boa constrictor in a toilet.

Stephanie Lacsa and Holly Wells are the co-founders Vertical PR + Marketing at 433 G Street in downtown San Diego, Fox 5 San Diego reports. The women happened to notice that the water level was unusually high in the office's private toilet. Assuming it was clogged, Lacsa picked up a plunger and attempted to solve the problem.

Lacsa wasn't wrong, it was definitely clogged—but with a 5-foot Colombian Rainbow Boa Constrictor.

"I thought my eyes were deceiving me," Lacsa said in a release that the firm—naturally—wrote, that appears on the San Diego County Department of Animal Services' Facebook page. "But as soon as I saw the flicker of its tongue, I definitely knew that it was in fact a large snake heading straight toward me."

Lacsa admitted that she doesn't particularly care for snakes. She said she ran out of the bathroom screaming and, as a precaution, taped the door shut. She said that when Animal Services arrived, the officer said she'd never seen anything like it, and said it was like an urban legend.

"This is every person's worst nightmare," Lacsa said.

Animal Services Deputy Director Daniel DeSousa told Fox 5 that the snake was found hiding behind the toilet when officers arrived, and that it was shedding and agitated. The snake also bit one of the handlers. This species of snake is non-venomous.

While creatures such as frogs, spiders, rats and snakes can find their way into a plumbing system and thereby a toilet, it's rare for it to occur in a bustling city. This would typically be a problem in old houses in rural areas, where stone foundations allow animals to squeeze through cracks. Animal Services believes this snake was likely someone's pet.

"We're hoping someone comes forward and says, 'Uh, I lost my snake,'" DeSousa said in a San Diego county video.

Lacsa said she has since learned that another tenant in the building has a pet snake, though no one's been able to contact the tenant since. Though Lacsa admits that the snake "scared the living daylights" out of her and Wells, she wishes the snake well. The snake is currently being cared for by Animal Control. If no one comes forward to claim the snake by Friday, it will go to a reptile rescue group.



