The resident, Xi Yan, sent the team a recording of the noise she heard, and the rescuers determined it sounded like a black spitting cobra, a venomous species.
The team searched Xi Yan's home for nearly an hour before Muhamad Safari Bin Masnor discovered the source of the hissing -- an Oral B electric toothbrush. He turned the toothbrush on and off again, bringing an end to the hissing.
The resident said she discovered the toothbrush was malfunctioning because it had gotten water into the battery compartment.
"The problem started because water got into my electrical toothbrush and affected the mechanism. I should really buy a new one, I don't want to go through this again," Xi Yan told Coconuts.
Police in Vancouver, British Columbia, responded to a similar situation recently when a resident of a high rise apartment building called to report encountering an alligator in a corridor. Police arrived to discover the reported reptile was a highly detailed sculpture.
