Plumber pulls live iguana out from Florida woman's clogged toilet

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Florida woman says she was having trouble flushing the toilet in her Fort Lauderdale home this past weekend. After failing to plunge the problem out, she called for professional help.

"I've never seen anything like this before," plumber Alisa Scott told ABC affiliate WPLG-TV. "This is the first time I pulled something like that out of a toilet."

Scott says she used her tools to reach far down into the toilet. What she began to pull out was still alive.

"To my surprise, I pulled out that large iguana," Scott said. "At first I thought it was a toy, and then it started moving around."

Iguanas are common in that part of Florida, but they aren't commonly found inside your plumbing.

Homeowner Lily Lindquist was sad when the iguana later died, she told WPLG-TV, but that's not the only reason she doesn't want something like this to happen again. She believes the iguana got into her home through a vent on her roof. She's now making it a priority to close off those vents to prevent another toilet surprise.

"I don't want to be there when an iguana flies out of the toilet or an iguana bites me when I'm trying to go to the bathroom," Lindquist told WPLG-TV.