Yaletown renter comes home to find ‘python’ coiled up on her patio

Carey McBeth had just come home from a trip to Victoria when she came upon a startling sight on her balcony in Vancouver’s Yaletown area on Monday.

McBeth had previously found cigarette butts, marijuana and rats on the 1,000-sq.-ft. patio.

But this was something new: a snake she described as a python, measuring about five feet long.

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McBeth, a lifestyle events expert for Global News, rents an apartment at 1008 Cambie Street for $3,000 per month.

Every morning, she wakes up to find at least five cigarette butts on the patio, she told Global News.

Other times she’s found bags of marijuana and medical pot.

But on Monday, she returned home at about 2 p.m.

Then, looking out to the patio from her desk inside, she saw this:

“I just got home and I lost my mind,” McBeth, who hates snakes, told Global News.

“There was a g**damn python on my patio!”

McBeth told the building’s concierge, who “kind of started laughing” when she described the problem, according to her.

The concierge and another man entered the apartment as McBeth was in a “full on panic.”

They looked out on the patio and immediately started laughing, she said.

READ MORE: Seattle child finds python in apartment toilet 

“I’m panicking and I said, this isn’t funny.” she said.

McBeth said the concierge would make a phone call and have someone take the snake away.

“This is Yaletown, we’re not in the Amazon,” she said.

McBeth was soon informed that it could take anywhere from half an hour to two hours for someone to take care of the slithering creature.

For her, that wasn’t quick enough. So the fire department was called.

When the firemen came, she said one of the personnel said, “Holy s***! Look at the size of that thing!”

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One of them said the snake appeared to be injured, possibly after a fall from an apartment above.

Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services Capt. Jonathan Gormick confirmed that personnel attended a “medical event” that saw them “remove an exotic snake” from an apartment on Monday.

He said the snake was taken out of the building and handed over to Animal Control.

Gormick had no information about what happened to the snake after that.

He could not confirm whether the snake was actually a python — though McBeth said that’s how both a fireman and the concierge described it.

Under B.C.’s Controlled Alien Species Regulation, residents must hold a permit if they wish to possess any of 10 species of python.

Those include the Burmese python, the Indian python and the African rock python.