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Hey, South Florida, Look Before You Sit! Beware Of Iguanas In The Toilet!

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - It just keeps happening!!  Unwelcome creatures in the toilet greeting unsuspecting people when they're most vulnerable.

"I saw that tail swirling around, I'm like, 'Okay! That is not supposed to be there,'" said a terrified Michelle Bennett.

She got the shock of a lifetime Monday morning when she got up at 5 a.m. and found a spiny tail iguana hanging out in her toilet.

"I lifted the seat up and I saw the tail and I threw it back down. Then I started flushing the toilet trying to flush it out and it wouldn't flush out," she said.

WATCH: Web Extra video as iguana is captured

 

One thing was on her mind, what would have happened had she not noticed?

"What my vision was, suppose I just came into the bathroom, I didn't turn the light, and I just sat on my toilet," she recalled. "That is a terrifying prospect! That's what crossed my mind and I said, my grandmother, my angels were there because they said, 'No child, turn the light on, put your glasses on so you can see what you're doing,'" she said.

Trapper Harold Rondan from Iguana Lifestyles raced to the rescue using, what he calls, "The Stick Trick." He puts a stick in the toilet, waits a bit and the iguana crawls out.

Out it comes, no injuries to anyone, just the scare of a lifetime.

Rondan told CBS4 he gets this kind of call about 10 times a month, and there's one thing in common.

"Hollywood, to me, is the birth ground for these things. I don't know what it is. As soon as she called me and told me it was in the toilet, I didn't even have to look, I said, 'You're in Hollywood.'  She said, "How'd you know?'"

Rondan said there are lots of spiny tail iguanas in Hollywood. In fact, CBS4 News did a story just last month. They're known to be aggressive and carry diseases.

"This one is going to bite and do a death roll.  It's taking flesh from you," explained Rondan.  "This thing has 16 rows of spikes on its tail all around.  As soon as you grab it it's going to spin and slice your hand wide open," he said.

Rondan believes the iguanas get in through vent tubes on the roof. He explains the best way to keep them out is to cover the roof vent tubes with wire mesh. He said that should stop anything from crawling down and settling in the most popular seat in the house.

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