Big python surprises housewife in the loo

She had just sat down on the toilet bowl when she felt a sharp pain.

She looked down and saw a 1.8m-long python writhing in the toilet bowl, its jaws clamped on the back of her right thigh.

Petrified, Noraslinda Asat, 34, screamed.

Her husband, who had seen the shadow of the snake through the folding plastic door, said it was as thick as one of his forearms.

Mohammad Fitri Kassim, self-employed and also 34, recounted the incident, which happened on the evening of May 1.

His wife was in the bathroom of the master bedroom of their first-storey home at Block 826, Eunosville, in Sims Avenue.

Madam Noraslinda said she had just sat down when she heard a soft, bubbling noise and felt pain. The housewife said: "I looked down and I saw a snake."

She stood up and tried to grab the snake. But its body was so wide, it kept slipping out of her grip.

She said: "So I grabbed the head and pulled it off me. Then I backed out of the toilet and shut the door."

Their four-year-old daughter - Adriana, who had used the toilet five minutes earlier without incident - told Madam Noraslinda: "Mama, your tail was moving."

After the shock, Madam Noraslinda felt weak and drowsy. Mr Fitri called an ambulance, which took her to Changi General Hospital, where she was given an injection and discharged.

Doctors and nurses praised her bravery. They said "most girls would have fainted", according to Mr Fitri.

Describing the snake, Madam Noraslinda said: "It was brown, with patches of dark brown. I could tell it was a python. It was really long, I couldn't even see its tail in the toilet bowl."

Officers from the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society were called by police to capture the snake.

They searched the house but could not find the python, so the officers suspected it had slid back into the toilet bowl, said Mr Fitri.

Madam Noraslinda also called her brother's friend, a pest controller, for help.

He arrived close to midnight and, with Mr Fitri, checked the manhole outside the unit.

"We opened it and the snake's head was there," said Mr Fitri.

"The python looked tired and scared," said the pest controller, who declined to be named.

"I managed to grab part of its tail, but it slipped out of my grip and disappeared into a crack."

Madam Noraslinda's mother, Madam Fatimah Bee, 66, said she, too, had seen a snake in their common toilet. This was two weeks before Madam Noraslinda was bitten.

"I thought I saw a snake's head going back inside the toilet bowl," she said.

Following that sighting, Madam Fatimah poured pots of hot water down the toilet bowl, put the lid down and put bricks on top.

Mr Fitri has also been pouring hot water, sometimes with bleach, into both toilet bowls.

Madam Noraslinda now has a phobia about using either of her home's two toilets.

She is so traumatised that she has been using toilets at petrol kiosks, coffee shops and other public areas.

"I still feel very scared, because the snake has not been caught," she said.

This article by The New Paper was published in MyPaper, a free, bilingual newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

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