Forget the monsters under the bed. There really are slithery creatures lurking in the pipes.
Nature's call forced Nadege Brunacci, 38, to the dark bathroom in her Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, apartment in the wee hours of Monday morning.
While washing her hands, she glanced back at the toilet to find a 7-foot-long python staring back at her.
"I turned on the light and screamed, 'Oh, my God!'" said the hiss-sterical restaurateur. "It still makes my heart race."
She slammed down the lid, put a heavy box on top of it and began calling city agencies.
Most didn't believe her, and the ones that did told her, "We don't do snakes," she said.
Finally, the FDNY and her landlord came to the rescue.
Plumbers had to tear apart the downstairs neighbor's pipes to capture the serpent, which had retreated so that only its head poked through Brunacci's toilet.
"I was anxious about it getting flushed and never coming out," said Valerie Ross, 41, from whose apartment the snake was extricated. "I'm happy it's out. Now I'm just unhappy about the holes in my pipes."
Nobody knows where the snake came from, or how it made its way up three stories of piping, but a first-floor tenant in the four-story Tiffany Place walkup reported seeing the creature slithering down the basement steps eight days earlier.
Brunacci gave the snake to a friend who offered it a loving home and named it Nadege. City Health Department regulations prohibit keeping a python as a pet.
The creature may be gone from her flat, but the shattering of an urban legend has forced Brunacci to keep her eyes peeled every time she uses the bathroom.
"When I brush my teeth, I'm looking over my shoulder," she said.
And when she goes to the bathroom at night, she uses her daughter's training toilet.
