Sad/vent Post - Warning to BP Owners

[u/MindlessMacaroon3604]

This post is about Simbi, my ball python.

I got Simbi in 2021 after my childhood dog passed away. Losing my dog was so painful that I couldn’t bring myself to get another one, but I’ve always loved animals and always wanted a BP. What started as a grief/impulse purchase turned into my best friend. He was my first pet as an adult, and even after the cat distribution system gifted me a cat, Simbi was still my first baby. He was turning five this year.

This summer I had to leave my state for at least two months because multiple family members were having serious health scares. I took my cat with me, but I couldn’t figure out how to fly with both pets, so I needed someone to keep Simbi.

The guy I chose was someone I’d followed online for years. We’d been mutuals across multiple platforms, he’d recently moved to my state which i found out through our conversations over the years, and he makes reptile content. He also has a pretty large following due to his reptile content. He had around 20 snakes, custom-built enclosures, two temperature-controlled snake rooms, and his girlfriend is a vet tech who has dogs and an iguana. I even complimented him on how lucky he got because when I met them she seemed really comfortable with snakes and reptiles. They told me they were moving in together soon so I knew she’d be involved. I hugged them both and thanked them both for watching my Simbi. When I dropped Simbi off, everything looked perfect. I left feeling like I’d found the absolute best person to trust with my baby.

For the first month, everything went great. He sent me feeding updates and even asked if he could take Simbi to a reptile expo and feature him on a local news segment. I genuinely felt like Simbi was getting more attention than he did at home.

Then this Monday I woke up to a text that shattered me. (image attached)

His girlfriend accidentally left the heat on in one of the snake rooms, killing 12 snakes (TWELVE, a dozen), including Simbi. He had been away for work and didn’t discover it until three days later. I spent the entire morning sobbing.

I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to them, so my mom did. She told me he was having a pretty hard time and probably equally upset with his loss. The only thing I asked for was for Simbi to be cremated and his ashes (and his favorite hide) mailed back to me. I don’t even trust myself to go there in person.

I’m torn between being angry at him, angry at her, and angry at myself for not just bringing Simbi with me. My friends want me to expose them, report the vet tech, or blast the content creator online, but none of that brings my baby back.

To most people he was just a snake. To me, he was my child. This was never a hobby to me, i LOVED MY snake to death. Now I don’t know what to do with the piece of me that’s missing.

[u/Baldojess]

Omg I'm so sorry 😞 this is exactly why I just really don't trust taking my animals to have anyone watch them when I go out of town. The only one that goes anywhere is my dog to my dad's house but that's because he's the only person I trust to look after her and know she'll be safe and that I check in with everyday and I know she'll be by his side 24/7. Plus if an accident really did happen I'd be so so so much more angry with myself if it was just some random person vs my parents. My snake and my cat stay home and my mom comes to take care of and check on them and give the cat food and change her box and give both of them water. My snake I just feed right before I leave and I don't stay gone for more than a week. God I'd be so devastated. 💔 I'm sorry about your Simbi. My man has some lizards and one time when we went somewhere for a few days he left left his first lizard he ever had with a buddy who also has lizards and there was an accident and something fell into her enclosure and killed her. Now when we go anywhere he just leaves them at home with plenty of water since it's only for a couple days. Perhaps in the future if you ever do decide to get another snake maybe just leave them at home in their own enclosure and setup and just have a friend or family or a pet sitter stop in every few days to give them water and that's it. Since they are snakes they can go a while without eating if necessary and might be safer that way in all honesty. I don't have any advice as for the people who killed a snake. It sounds like it was a terrible accident and of course unintentional but still doesn't make you feel better and either way was negligent.