Teresa Sanchez: Woman finds six metre long python, thinks its a stuffed toy

A woman was shocked after she found a giant python laying on top of a waste bin near her apartment.

Teresa Sanchez spotted the snake, who was later given the name Apple, when she pulled into the car garage at her LA apartment complex.

She thought it was a giant toy, and so she walked over to the bin to check it out.

The snake looked very realistic, so Ms Sanchez guessed it might be a work of taxidermy, but then it moved.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Ms Sanchez told KTLA. “I was like, ‘am I in Florida? What’s going on here?’”

She then tried calling for help.

“The first thing I called was animal control, but they didn’t pick up, so I called the police and they just said, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t help you. These are not the usual things we provide support with,’” she said.

Meanwhile, Apple was facing its own troubles. A bystander realised the snake’s health appeared to be very poor because it was unable to open its mouth due to severe swelling.

It appeared that Apple had escaped after being shoved in a plastic container that was then thrown in the bin.

The bystander said many of the animal control groups they called had mentioned the possibility of euthanasia and so she decided to keep searching until she found someone who would rehabilitate the python.

She called on Joseph Hart from SoCal Reptile Hunter to help safely remove Apple from its precarious position.

“I wanted to find someone who was more compassionate about animals so that they could hopefully take it, rescue it and nurse it back to health,” she said.

Apple was safely removed, but the question of who abandoned the python remains unanswered.

The news comes after a monster 5.2m python was found at a Queensland home in July.

A homeowner in the small town of Mareeba, about 60kms east of Cairns, was locking up late on Tuesday night when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, just before he turned the light off.

Going in for a closer look, the man was confronted with a monster snake lurking along the house’s gutters and downpipe.

Jay Everding, from Close Encounters Reptile Removal, said the shaken owner called him for help, saying “I think I’ve got an anaconda!”.

Mr Everding said he initially thought the man might have been exaggerating the reptile’s size.

“(But) when we came in the driveway, I could see him and I was like, ‘Oh, s..t. It is a big snake’. Like, for a second, I was doubting if I could actually get him or just how big he was.”

And you know it’s a whopper when even the snake catcher is impressed — with the reptile measuring a little over 5.2 metres long and weighing in at 26.4kgs.

It took more than an hour to wrestle the reptile away from the house.

“I think in the end he kind of gave up,” Mr Everding, who has 20 years experience catching snakes, said.

“I think he was exhausted. But I’m glad he gave up first because I was just about to give up.”