Creepy

I woke up last night at around 5:00am , turned on the light and walked over to the bathroom. The minute I walked in, I noticed that something was wrong: the shower drain cap had been removed and put a few inches to the side, leaving an exposed hole leading to the sewer.

Had the maid (I am staying at the Chennai Salvation Army Guest House) come in and accidentally moved it while cleaning? No; I had deadbolted the door from inside.

So something must have come from the sewer and managed to push up the (rather heavy) drain cap to get inside the room. I felt a chill go down my spine.

I had seen a couple lizards in the bathroom earlier in the day, but they were too small to lift the cap. Ditto for roaches.

That left two possibilities: rats or snakes.

I can live with rats. They carry disease, so its best if you shoo them away, but otherwise they won't attack you.

Snakes, on the other hand, are a clear and present danger to my health. Many in south India are and highly aggressive.

I walked out to the reception area. I saw a familiar face sweeping the floors with a straw broom.

"Do you have snakes here?"

"Oh yes. All kinds. Cobras, water snakes..." He said, taking a break from his sweeping. Hopefully he thought I meant in India, not in the guesthouse itself.

"Well I just woke up and the drain cap was moved. Something came up from the sewer into the room. Do you think it could be snakes?"

"No, no, no. It's rats. We have a lot around here." That's plausible. It is a tropical climate and a river is nearby. I have seen many enormous rats roaming the streets at night.

"OK, I'll search the room. Sometimes when it's dark I mistake the rats for cats."

He laughed. "Sometimes I mistake them for dogs." OK, that's scary, not funny.

So I went back inside the room and did a full search. Nothing. Whatever it was probably went back into the sewer.

I put the cap back on, and then put a bucket over the drain. I thought about putting some water in the bucket to make it heavier, but it might attract mosquitoes. So instead I balanced a smaller bucket precariously on top of the first. If anything even tried to move the drain cap, the small bucket would fall and wake me up.

I also had a pipe (taken from the reception) by my bed. If I heard the bucket fall, I would turn on the light, run over with the pipe, bludgeon the creature to death, then (with a newspaper) take it outside and leave it on the street. Everybody does it.

Fortunately, I sleep the next couple hours in peace. But I'm staying at the guest house one more night, so we'll see what happens...