U.S. Coast Guardsman Jason Maddux had just gotten out of bed at his Astoria apartment 6:30 Thursday morning when he spotted a 3-foot long python cuddling the baseboard heater in his living room.
“It was just there,” he told The Daily Astorian. “Actually, I’m not a snake person, and I didn’t want to get near the thing, so I kept an eye on it.”
And took a photo.
He called in to work to say he’d be late because of his unusual situation at home, and his boss recommended he call the police. Maddux did, and two Astoria police officers, Sgts. Brian Aydt and Eric Halverson, arrived at the Exchange Street location 10 minutes later. The officers pushed the snake into a plastic bin and took it away.
Why did the snake pick Maddux’s apartment?
Maddux had just moved to Astoria and hadn’t entirely unpacked everything.
He had been having trouble with his baseboard heating unit in the living room, and couldn’t figure out how to work it. It turns out the dial was on backwards, so every time he tried to lower the heat, he was actually turning it up. The temperature in the apartment reached 85 degrees, by Maddux’s estimate. It’s likely the warmth enticed the snake out of hiding, and it slithered straight to the baseboard heat source.
No one seems to have any idea where the snake came from, or how long it’s been on the loose before turning up Thursday morning. It’s unlikely that it came in Maddux’s belongings, which were in storage in Florida and Connecticut for eight months, as it probably would have starved to death.
“It’s not like I was keeping any mice in there,” Maddux noted.
Anyone missing a rather large python?