sqwv
Meeting neighbors
His name was partially inspired by the Michael Douglas character in the movie Wall Street, and partially inspired by Gordon Downie from the band Tragically Hip who I were really into in the mid 90s when we rescued him.
Interesting story...
My friend's father was a Sgt on the local police force, and had a moonlight company that did contract cleanups, board-ups, etc.
Oe day we got called to a doozie. A house was raided by the feds because the man was one of those nuts who believed that it was unconstitutional to pay income taxes, and that a solid defense could be made to defend this stance. Since the IRS generally does not subscribe to this particular view, they sent someone to chat with him about it. That is not exactly why he was raided, but it should become more clear when I mention that during the IRS visit, the man became irate and pulled a gun on the agent and demanded he leave. Anyway, a short time later SWAT dragged this man out of his home.
When the SWAT people were looking over this home, they found DOZENS of snake and reptile habitats, and had Animal Control come in and secure all of the reptiles (or so they thought). A couple/few months later, we were called in to break down the cages and remove them, and to prepare the house for auction. Some of them were so large that they were obviously built in the rooms. We sawzalled and sledged them and threw them out the window.
While cleaning out the garage, I noticed a 10 gal aquarium that appeared to be a vacant terrarium. I kept saltwater fish and amazon cichlids at the time, and thought I could strip out and reseal the tank and repurpose it as a hospital tank.
About halfway back to the truck, I noticed something moving inside this tank and I nearly dropped it. We had been warned that if we saw ANY snake or reptile, to keep some distance and call Animal Control to come back out ASAP. I guess they thought this guy may have been illegally keeping venomous animals that are not allowed in IL, and were taking precautions in case he DID have some, and perhaps set them loose in the crawlspace or registers or something to avoid having more charges added to his long list and to possibly increase the chances of survival for any venomous creatures that would have certainly been euthanized.
Anyway, this lizard thing is behind glass and there is a screen lid on it. I wrap a bungee to make SURE that lid does not come loose, and put this in the front seat of the truck.
I noticed that he was barely breathing, and he had NO water at all. I poured some water from my water bottle through the screen lid into the water dish. He crawled INTO the water dish and did not stop lapping at that water for at least 10 mins.
I put him in my garage until I could figure out what he was...
I called the Animal Control guys to come to my house and check him out. They guy literally laughed when I said I wanted to make sure it wasn't poisonous, but then understood when I said where we found him. We had no idea what they ate, and I emember a friend had an iguana that ate veggies, so I put some lettuce in there. He sat on it, but never ate it. Anyway, once the animal control guy was there, he asked why I had the lettuce in there, and I admitted that I had no idea what they ate. He walks around the side of the garage and turns over a stone and grabs a couple crickets.
Those crickets hit the floor of the tank and that little dude who could barely walk a few hours earlier POUNCED on them within seconds.
He's been a part of the household ever since.
BTW, we realized that the 'he' is actually a 'she' when she dug up every square inch of the terrarium at least five times and laid two infertile eggs.
This was YEARS after we rescued her, and she was never in contact with any other lizard of any type, so there was no way they were the result of breeding.
I would guess her age to be somewhere around 17-18.
Interesting story...
My friend's father was a Sgt on the local police force, and had a moonlight company that did contract cleanups, board-ups, etc.
Oe day we got called to a doozie. A house was raided by the feds because the man was one of those nuts who believed that it was unconstitutional to pay income taxes, and that a solid defense could be made to defend this stance. Since the IRS generally does not subscribe to this particular view, they sent someone to chat with him about it. That is not exactly why he was raided, but it should become more clear when I mention that during the IRS visit, the man became irate and pulled a gun on the agent and demanded he leave. Anyway, a short time later SWAT dragged this man out of his home.
When the SWAT people were looking over this home, they found DOZENS of snake and reptile habitats, and had Animal Control come in and secure all of the reptiles (or so they thought). A couple/few months later, we were called in to break down the cages and remove them, and to prepare the house for auction. Some of them were so large that they were obviously built in the rooms. We sawzalled and sledged them and threw them out the window.
While cleaning out the garage, I noticed a 10 gal aquarium that appeared to be a vacant terrarium. I kept saltwater fish and amazon cichlids at the time, and thought I could strip out and reseal the tank and repurpose it as a hospital tank.
About halfway back to the truck, I noticed something moving inside this tank and I nearly dropped it. We had been warned that if we saw ANY snake or reptile, to keep some distance and call Animal Control to come back out ASAP. I guess they thought this guy may have been illegally keeping venomous animals that are not allowed in IL, and were taking precautions in case he DID have some, and perhaps set them loose in the crawlspace or registers or something to avoid having more charges added to his long list and to possibly increase the chances of survival for any venomous creatures that would have certainly been euthanized.
Anyway, this lizard thing is behind glass and there is a screen lid on it. I wrap a bungee to make SURE that lid does not come loose, and put this in the front seat of the truck.
I noticed that he was barely breathing, and he had NO water at all. I poured some water from my water bottle through the screen lid into the water dish. He crawled INTO the water dish and did not stop lapping at that water for at least 10 mins.
I put him in my garage until I could figure out what he was...
I called the Animal Control guys to come to my house and check him out. They guy literally laughed when I said I wanted to make sure it wasn't poisonous, but then understood when I said where we found him. We had no idea what they ate, and I emember a friend had an iguana that ate veggies, so I put some lettuce in there. He sat on it, but never ate it. Anyway, once the animal control guy was there, he asked why I had the lettuce in there, and I admitted that I had no idea what they ate. He walks around the side of the garage and turns over a stone and grabs a couple crickets.
Those crickets hit the floor of the tank and that little dude who could barely walk a few hours earlier POUNCED on them within seconds.
He's been a part of the household ever since.
BTW, we realized that the 'he' is actually a 'she' when she dug up every square inch of the terrarium at least five times and laid two infertile eggs.
This was YEARS after we rescued her, and she was never in contact with any other lizard of any type, so there was no way they were the result of breeding.
I would guess her age to be somewhere around 17-18.
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how cool!!!! Saroj has a A-nole named Steve...he too is beautiful
