Rhode Island woman finds snake in apartment after previous tenant lost it months earlier
A Rhode Island woman woke up to an atypical intruder in her home one evening. It wasn't a burglar, but a pet snake that a previous resident had lost months earlier.
"It's something you just don't wake up to in Rhode Island. Florida, maybe," Nicole Jones said to WPRI.
Jones is seven months pregnant and went to get a snack when she said she found the reptile in the kitchen of her new apartment in East Providence. She woke her mother after trying to figure out whether it was real or a dream. But after the snake moved, she called the East Providence Police.
They said it was not venomous and not native to the area, so they removed it from her home. They said that it was an unusual call to respond to.
But when she learned they planned to take it to a reptile shop and nobody would know where it ended up, she wanted her new scaly friend back.
"It was just very calm, no agitation, nothing, so I was like, you know, it seems like a very good snake, even though it's been through a lot clearly," she explained.
Lost by previous tenant
Jones was able to track down the previous tenant using social media, who told her they had been looking for it for three months to no avail. They plan to pick the snake up next week.
"I've been here sleeping, not knowing where he's been hiding, " she explained. She said she kept asking them if any more snakes were hiding in the home.
But it is a bittersweet moment for Jones, who said the snake had grown on her and her son, who is sad to see it go. She told WPRI that she may get him one for his birthday.
WPRI contributed to this report.