VENICE, Fla. (WSVN) — A Florida homeowner found a scaly surprise in her hallway when an alligator made itself right at home inside her home, so she made a call to the experts to wrangle the reptile.
When Venice resident Mary Hollenback heard banging on her front screen door, she said she wasn’t too concerned.
“I thought it was somebody else who didn’t live here trying to get in, trying to get into the wrong house,” she said. “I got off the couch, came around the door prepared to say, ‘You’re in the wrong place.'”
But inside her home she found an unwanted guest. It was a scaly one with a tail.
Hollenback said two thoughts came to her.
“One is, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have an alligator in my house.’ Number two is, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have an alligator in my house. How am I going to get rid of him?'” she said.
Grabbing her phone, Hollenback dialed 911.
“By that point, I was shaking so badly, I didn’t know who else to call,” she said. “I don’t think I could have even looked up a phone number.”
The alligator made it from her hallway and appeared to get stuck in her kitchen.
It took a few Sarasota County Sheriff’s County deputies and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers to haul the 7-foot, 11-inch alligator away.
“They were so calm, so cool, so professional. They just acted like, ‘Oh, alligator in the house? OK. no big deal. We got it, case closed,'” said Hollenback.
The homeowner explained you’re how the alligator got in through her screen door.
“It’s just a magnet, but he was pushing on this and eventually just broke the magnetic connection,” she said.
And it appears the gator didn’t have to travel too far. Hollenback thinks he came from a pond located right across the street from her house.
“He had to come through two yards, cross the street and then come into my house, but nobody saw him,” she said.
Hollenback said she isn’t worried about any future visitors after getting the guest of a lifetime.
“‘Cause only in Florida you’re going to get an alligator in the house,” she said.
FWC officials said the alligator was transferred to an alligator farm.
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