A woman from St. Louis County, Missouri, was left baffled when she found a python in the kitchen pantry after she returned home from a vacation.

Araminta Miles returned to her apartment on June 2, when she saw an 18-inch snake, a ball python, curled up in the corner of the kitchen cabinet.

"I sat down on my stool like this, and am down here looking through the can goods. and something just said, 'Turn around to look' and it looked like a scarf. So, there is no way a scarf could be in my closet," Miles told CBS-affiliated television station KMOV on Monday.

However, she soon realized it was a snake.

"I was on the phone with my friends and was like, 'There is a snake in my apartment, bye!,'" she said, adding that she then approached the Ballwin police for help. An officer arrived at the apartment and managed to wriggle the reptile into a pillow case until the animal control reached the scene and took it away.

"I was scared. I have a phobia of snakes. I don't like snakes. I have a pet dog, that's it," Miles said.

Speaking to St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ballwin police officer Scott Stephens said, "She was definitely not one who likes snakes I can say that. But I guess who would want a snake in their kitchen?"

However, nobody knows how the reptile got into the pantry.

"We really don't know how it got there. But we think it was probably someone's pet,” Stephens said, adding that the officers went from door to door in the apartment complex to check if anyone had lost pet snake, but to no avail.

"We were definitely happy to be able to get rid of it safely and quickly," Stephens said, adding, "Police officers end up doing these weird animal calls more than you would think."

python
This is a representational image showing a woma python from Australia during the annual animal inventory at Zoo Berlin zoo in Berlin, Dec. 12, 2012. Getty Images/Sean Gallup
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