A woman living in central Amsterdam got the shock of her life on Wednesday morning when she lifted the lid of the toilet in her home to find a 50 cm brown and orange snake, the Parool reports.

The snake, which was still in the toilet after she returned from alerting the police, is thought to be a corn snake, which is not poisonous. Corn snakes are common in the US and it is a complete mystery how it ended up in a city centre flat, the Parool says.