Mary Hollenback was enjoying a quiet day at her home in Venice, Florida, when she heard someone at the front door.
Expecting a neighbor who’d simply mistaken her house for theirs — a common enough occurrence in her lookalike neighborhood — she got up to set them straight.
“I went to let them know they had the wrong house,” Hollenback told The Dodo.
But when she opened the door, it wasn’t a lost neighbor she found.
It was an 8-foot alligator, casually walking into her living room like he owned the place.
“My first thought was, ‘I have an alligator in my house!’” Hollenback said. “And my second was, ‘How the heck am I going to get him out?’”
The gator had somehow nudged open her screen door and wandered right in — then made himself comfortable by the kitchen fridge, possibly hoping for a snack.
Hollenback wisely called for help, and before long, a team from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the local sheriff’s department arrived on the scene.
By that point, the alligator had stopped moving — not out of politeness, but because he was stuck. His scaly feet couldn’t get traction on the smooth tile floor, making it hard for him to turn around.
Despite his frustration (and impressive size), the officers managed to wrangle the giant reptile and escort him back outside.
And surprisingly, the aftermath was mild.
“I was shocked there wasn’t more damage — just some scratches on my cabinet doors,” Hollenback said.
The gator was safely relocated to a more suitable habitat, and Hollenback’s day returned (mostly) to normal.
“This is definitely a story I’ll be telling for a long time,” she said. “Gators don’t usually waltz into people’s homes. But this one did — and now it’s taken on a life of its own.”
