I can't believe what happened this morning. I thought my tegu was gone forever. I had the tegu out this morning because I was going to quickly change his newspaper. I was on the bed for a second with him, something spooked him and he jumped on the floor and under the door before I had a chance to do anything. The door he went into leads to the 3rd bedroom which has a panel in the closet to access the bathroom plumbing. I came around from the other side and as I entered the room he went into the plumbing area.
I cut out dry wall in the bathroom just to see if he was under the tub. Then I realized the tub sits on floorboards and that he was actually under those floorboards. I had called a home inspector that we had used and he said that he thought it was a confined space under the tub. After an hour or so we started drilling through the floorboards trying to see what was under there and to see if we could get a gander of the tegu. What we found really brought me down. We realized that there was actually a series of parallel boards that ran through the ENTIRE house. He could have been anywhere. After 4 hours, I realized we had to give. We set up a heat lamp, and were about to set up food and a lamp that he could access, should he choose to come out. I REALLY REALLY thought it was over. I was balling my eyes out downstairs, feeling loss, wondering why the heck so much stuff is going wrong for me right now. All of a sudden Chris, my bf, said, "Honey, I have him." This was right after praying to God that a miracle happen (I am not religious but let's say I have more of a faith in God now). I just can't believe that he was just sitting there the whole time not making a peep under the floorboards. We are so lucky that he didn't run to the other end of the house.
If there could be a morale to this story for me, it's that now I know it is necessary to know my house inside out because I might not be so lucky next time. We are going to board up the entrance to the pipes, and make sure there are no gaps under the doors anymore or any open holes anywhere for that matter. I don't want to play with luck and fate anymore.
I think I may have a name for him/her now though...Lucky.
I cut out dry wall in the bathroom just to see if he was under the tub. Then I realized the tub sits on floorboards and that he was actually under those floorboards. I had called a home inspector that we had used and he said that he thought it was a confined space under the tub. After an hour or so we started drilling through the floorboards trying to see what was under there and to see if we could get a gander of the tegu. What we found really brought me down. We realized that there was actually a series of parallel boards that ran through the ENTIRE house. He could have been anywhere. After 4 hours, I realized we had to give. We set up a heat lamp, and were about to set up food and a lamp that he could access, should he choose to come out. I REALLY REALLY thought it was over. I was balling my eyes out downstairs, feeling loss, wondering why the heck so much stuff is going wrong for me right now. All of a sudden Chris, my bf, said, "Honey, I have him." This was right after praying to God that a miracle happen (I am not religious but let's say I have more of a faith in God now). I just can't believe that he was just sitting there the whole time not making a peep under the floorboards. We are so lucky that he didn't run to the other end of the house.
If there could be a morale to this story for me, it's that now I know it is necessary to know my house inside out because I might not be so lucky next time. We are going to board up the entrance to the pipes, and make sure there are no gaps under the doors anymore or any open holes anywhere for that matter. I don't want to play with luck and fate anymore.
I think I may have a name for him/her now though...Lucky.
