Kansas Man Digs Into Couch Cushions Looking for His Keys, Finds 6-Foot Boa Constrictor Instead

If you think you’ve lost something, there’s a good chance it’s fallen between your couch cushions—this goes for wallets, keys, electronic devices, and apparently, giant snakes.

On Monday morning in Rose Hill, Kansas, a man innocently checked the cracks of his living room couch during a hunt for his keys and instead discovered a 6-foot red-tailed boa constrictor lurking beneath the cushions. Beyond the obvious issue of there being a deadly reptile on the loose in his house, there was another mystery: The man doesn’t own a snake, and Kansas definitely isn’t known for its native boa constrictors.

He called 911, and the local fire department was dispatched to remove the slithery, squeeze-happy squatter. According to a Facebook post by Butler County Fire District #3, the department’s “resident snake charmer,” deputy fire chief Melvin Linot, took care of wrangling the creature.

“I messed with him a little bit, and I took my gloves off. You could handle him real easy. He was very gentle,” Linot told WSFA 12 News.

For now, the boa constrictor is being held in a pet shop while the residents of Rose Hill wait for a neighbor to claim it. If nobody does, it could end up as part a program that teaches local schoolchildren about reptiles.

It’s unclear whether the man ever did find his keys, or if perhaps the boa constrictor found them first.