The first water monitor I ever got was a gift from my wife (at the time my girlfreind.) It was 4.5 ft and about 40lbs. This was a case of having the cart before the horse as I did not yet have a cage for it. Dumb idea no 2 (no 1 being getting a lizard I was not prepared to house yet.) Was to put it in a room by itself while I built a cage. This lizard found a hole in a wall the size of my fist and how it managed to fit in it still amazes me to this day. Anyway I had to rip the wall out to retrieve the monitor. It was an old wall (lathe and plaster not dry wall) so it was not easy and it was my parent's house so they were not happy but not unused to my many reptile mishaps as a child. When we bought the house I live in now our move was rather sudden and I had to dismantle most of my cages for transport. I had two water monitors both about 4ft at the time and decided to put them in a bathroom upstairs while I moved in and reassembled cages. No problems for the first 2 weeks so I got lazy and kept them in there and took my time rebuilding cages even though at this point I should have known better. My wife and I come home from work one night and a freind we had living with us at the time had doors and windows open and several fans going and I am wondering what in God's name he is up to. The monitors had crawled between the spickets on the bath tub and turned them on and flooded our new house. Thank God nothing was seriously damaged but I finished reassembling their cage REALLY fast. The moral here is don't let your monitors run loose like Frank said it is just an accident waiting to happen. Build a cage. You can build a half-***ed cage that will work for less than$500 which is much cheaper than the damage that can be done.

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