Late Friday evening, the NYPD removed over a dozen exotic and mostly monster-ish animals from an apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. All told, police seized 13 animals, including two alligators, two bearded dragons, five pythons, a boa constrictor, a gecko, a scorpion, and a tarantula. Not entirely sure why they took the gecko, but I'm sure they had their reasons. Neighbors noted the apartment's tenants also had some other scary animals.

"They've got some big dogs," said Jeff Hayes, 43, a private contractor. "They've got some pit bulls up there. They need to do something," he said, speaking about the city-contracted animal protection agency, AC&C.

The same neighbor also discussed which creature frightened him the most.

"That tarantula scares me more than anything because the poison is deadly," added Hayes.

Wrong: the scariest animal of that group is definitely the scorpion. And the snakes. Also, fact-check: tarantula venom is only deadly if you're allergic to it. Anyway, another neighbor was surprised by the raid.

"It's straight weird," he said. "I've had little problems with them."

He did, however, note that the apartment had had problems with leaks in the past, and that the tenants had denied access to the building's maintenance crew.

"They didn't want to let them in," he said. "Now it all makes sense."

Yep. In retrospect, it totally makes sense that his upstairs neighbors were hoarding thirteen terrifying beasts.

[Image via Shutterstock]