Boa constrictor found on roof of College Park home

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Zack Madison got a text from his next door neighbor Friday afternoon that the young homeowner never expected he’d have to read: “There’s a 6-foot-long snake on your roof.”

"He thought it was a pet, I'm like, ‘I don't have a pet snake,’" Madison said.

The pictures of what went down while he was at work nearly left him speechless.

It was a red-tailed boa constrictor slithering around on his shingles. 

Trapper David Samuel said that’s unusual because most Florida snakes don’t climb, and it’s even more unusual because the boa is not a Florida snake.

Samuel, and fellow trapper Bob Cross, arrived to find the Central American snake slithering through the gutter of the home. 

With the help of a snake stick, Cross got it down, taking a bite to the hand from the feisty snake in the process.

"This snake has to be someone's pet,” Cross said.

The duo believes it got loose, maybe two years ago, and has been wandering the Orlando area unnoticed since. 

That whole time it also had a piece of netting, or fishing wire, wrapped around its belly that the reptile had actually been growing around.

Cross removed the wire and says, miraculously, it wasn’t impeding the snake’s ability to eat, as it was healthy otherwise.

“It's been eating a lot of squirrels probably,” Cross said. "You do not have to euthanize the boa constrictor, so in this case, I'm just going to keep it."

Madison was happy to have Cross and Samuel take it off his property, mostly because of where it’s very likely been taking up shelter.

Samuel pointed out a small gap between Madison’s wall and roof that he thinks the boa could have easily been entering in and out of. 

He says it may have been living in Madison’s attic.

"Yeah, no,” Madison said. “The thought that that thing's been in my house possibly, I mean, I hope he's kidding."

The red-tail boa is non-venomous and at its current length, Samuel said it likely wouldn’t have been a threat to humans. 

However, he adds they do grow much longer than that over time.

The trappers weren’t sure how old the snake is, or how much more growing it has to do.