Pythons, Bearded Dragons, Alligators and Other Exotic Animals Found in Brooklyn Apartment

Police unearthed a trove of not very cuddly animals in a Brooklyn apartment this weekend.

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An alligator removed by NYPD from the Weeksville Houses in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sept. 7, 2012.

You think your neighbors are bad? Put aside the loud music and crying children emanating from the adjoining apartment and picture this: imaging sharing a wall with a scorpion, two alligators, and five pythons. New York City police unearthed a trove of wild and exotic animals stashed in an apartment on Friday. The menagerie, which also included a boa constrictor, a gecko, two bearded dragons and a tarantula  were all keeping their owner company in an apartment in the Weeksville public housing project in Brooklyn. Apparently puppies or kittens were too cuddly.

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A police spokesman told the New York Daily News, that the cops discovered the animals while executing an unrelated search warrant at the apartment. The discovery of six deadly snakes prompted police to call in the city’s animal control agency, who confiscated the animals. Most of the animals were being kept in fish tanks.

While keeping exotic animals is by no means illegal, the animals are not allowed in New York City’s public housing developments. There is no evidence that the animals were mistreated by their owner and there were no charges issued against the pet owner.

This isn’t the first time the NYPD have found zoological surprises inside New York City apartments. In 2003, police had to repel down a 19-story public housing building to tranquilize a 350-pound Bengal tiger that a Harlem man was keeping in his apartment, along with a pet caiman that measured over five feet long. The tiger was eventually shipped to a conservancy in Ohio, according to the New York Times.

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