● 24 Speaking of ... are you writing something?

Four weeks ago yesterday, an anonymous note was posted on our entrance doors, written in so-so swedish. Directly translated, it read something like this:

N.B.

My pet an inland taipan (snake) has unfortunately escaped she is 130 cm long, calm, calm she’s not poisionous until she’s grown up, right now she’s a ”teenager” yellow/green/brown spotted with triangular shaped head.

She likes damp and dark places, was fed the days before she disappeared (3 days ago) so she won’t get hungry for 2-3 weeks. Both county vet, police (114) and 112 have been contacted.

If/when you find her let the animal be and contact the above mentioned authorities.

Thank you in advance

Sincerely yours, the owner

This caused quite a stir in our building, since it sounds like a bad joke, but you can't be 100% sure that it is. Moreover, we soon learned that the inland taipan is poisonious from the moment it has hatched.

After a week, the real estate manager posted another note saying that a snake hunter was working in the building, and that the attic was shut off.

Then nothing. For two weeks. Then I got annoyed of the information vacuum and sort of alerted the media... thinking that a short notice in the local newspaper could help get more information out of the real estate manager. Only, it seems the media was starving for something poisionous, on home turf, that everyone could relate to, instead of huge calamities in Japan, New Zeeland and Northen Africa. The "short notice" turned up as a spread, that was picked up by national newspapers on Sunday, and then radio, and TV. The talk of the week! (I was even on the radio - twice! And my neighbour on TV. Yikes!) Everyone I meet askes med "have they caught the snake yet??!"

After a hectic week of being hunted by media, the city's environmental department now urges the real estate manager to search all apartments, and will use forced entry if the tenants don't collaborate. In the middle of this, a conspiracy theory dawned on me. What about the guy that was evicted in September? Wouldn't this be the perfect subtle revenge on his former neighbours? At least the door code has not been changed since he moved out... Hm.