Python Puts Squeeze On

When Chris Azharian moved from one unit into another at the Highland Meadows Apartments here, her cat Mistoffelees started acting strange. He stopped meowing, wouldn’t use his litter box, refused to enter the kitchen, walked in weird postures and slept under Azharian’s bed.

Trips to the veterinarian every day for three weeks straight failed to find the cause. Then, last Friday, a snake suddenly emerged from the wall and seemingly tried to bite Azharian as she sat on the kitchen floor.

“The head of the snake came out, stuck its tongue out at me and tried to strike,” the 21-year-old woman, who promptly screamed for help, recalled Wednesday. “It was a very hungry six-foot Burmese python and it would have eaten my cat.”

Soon, animal control officers arrived at Azharian’s apartment, and--aided by a neighbor who incorrectly thought it might be his missing snake--removed it from the wall after knocking holes in the plaster behind the pantry.

Azharian said that her cat’s veterinarian, Richard S. Glassberg, had been telling her Mistoffelees’ problem was stress-related. When Glassberg learned about the snake, he said the cat was probably acting strangely because the python might have ventured from its hiding place at night while Azharian was sleeping and tormented Mistoffelees.

“That would explain the cat’s inappropriate urination in the middle of the floor, the weird postures and sore back,” Glassberg said Wednesday. “It’s possible the snake may have wrapped itself around the cat.”

Snake experts said that unlike a fully grown python, this snake is still too small to devour a cat, but may have delighted in taunting and touching Mistoffelees.

The python, a nocturnal reptile, now resides at the county kennel.

Before feeding it Wednesday, Lt. Mary Van Holt said the snake was “hungry and mean and will bite.”

If the python has calmed down enough, it will be auctioned off this afternoon, Van Holt said.

The three-week-long ordeal left Azharian, a Cal State Fullerton photojournalism student who photographed the snake when it was yanked out of the wall, shaken.

“I’ve been having nightmares,” she said. “Misty’s still a little apprehensive but her behavior’s back to normal now.”

Azharian said she had feared her cat might have a terrible disease and was considering having her seen by a feline specialist before she found out the reason for Mistoffelees’ stress.

“She knew all along that there was a snake in the house,” Azharian said, cuddling the 4-year-old pet she rescued from a Denver pound when it was a kitten. “She could sense that she was prey and she was trying to tell me.

“Misty’s by far the most important thing to me, and if anything would have happened to her I would’ve gone crazy,” she said.

The manager at Highland Meadows said snakes no longer will be allowed to be kept in the complex for fear of a repeat encounter.

Manager Bob Vivers said he believes the python in Azharian’s apartment might have been owned by the previous tenant, who moved out of state about a month ago.

So the python incident is over. That only leaves the neighbor’s missing snake to consider.

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Snakes Alive

Pythons are large, nonvenomous snakes of the same family as boa constrictors. Other pythons particulars:

Habitat: Southeast Asia, India, the East Indies, Africa and Australia

Length: Average adult is about 12 to 15 feet.

Diet: Large pythons usually eat small animals about the size of house cats; they swallow prey whole.

Feeding: Called constrictors because they kill prey by suffocation (squezzing until breathing and circulation stop); they donot crush prey to death.

Nocturnal: They hunt at night not only because of poor eyesight but because their prey are active then; also, they are less likely to become prey themselves.

Life span: Pythons can live up to 20 years in captivity.

Mythology: Python was the snake Apollo killed before he founded the oracle at Delphi.

Source: Academic American Encyclopedia