I've had my ball python for a little over 2 months now, and it has been a breeze since the first day I had her. She eats like a champ, and she shed for the first time last weekend. She is still young as she is only 19 inches, and weighs 115g. As I am a college student, I left for winter break to go to my home town for 2 weeks. I left the pets in the hands of my roommate as I have always done in the past. When my roommate went to feed the snake tonight, she was not in her enclosure. I have absolutely no idea how this could have happened. This is my first snake, but not my first reptile. I knew they were escape artists, and I thought I had the lid secure well enough. My roommate and I have a 2 bedroom apartment, so there's not a huge radius she could be hiding, but a lot of little crevices.

I'm honestly not sure how to go about this because I've never had one of my smaller pets get loose before. She could possibly have gotten out almost a week ago, and I'm stuck over 500 miles away until Friday. My roommate has been ripping the apartment apart trying to find her, but no luck. No doubt she will be getting hungry sometime soon. Our apartment is usually kept on the cooler side, and the bedrooms are usually the coldest. The snake is kept in the living room. No doubt she will be looking for warm places to curl up in. One of my other fears is that my roommate and I have pet gerbils. Should we be worried about the snake getting into their aquarium, or worried about their safety? The gerbils are kept in my room, and have never even been in the same room as the snake.

So those are my main worries. I'm unsure of what to tell my roommate to do, and if I need to worry about my other pets. I've never had one of my reptiles escape before.