The Polston family awoke to what they thought were the sounds of an Easter morning break-in, only to discover moments later that their perp was not a human but a nearly 10-foot-long alligator who had wandered from his golf course home, loped up a flight of stairs and smashed through an aluminum screen door to chill on a furnished porch.
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While it was on the one hand a relief for the family that there was no greater threat, it was on the other hand uncomfortable.
Susie Polston described the incident to The Post and Courier as “surreal” and “bizarre.”
She said that she fell asleep in her Mount Pleasant, S.C., home while watching TV and was rudely awakened by the gator. Polston yelled, “Somebody’s trying to break into the house,” and her family huddled in a bedroom while they called 911.
But when the noises stopped, Polston’s son Ben, 16, looked around the home. Moments later, he yelled, “Oh my God, I found it! I found it!”
A gator removal service soon arrived on the scene and tried to wait the creature out for two hours, but it wouldn’t move.
Ronnie Russell of Gator Getter Consultants said that the gator was too large to drag out with a stick and was euthanized.
“A 5-footer, we could have put a dog stick on it and dragged it out,” he said. “One that large, he likes to grab onto things [to fight].”
Susie Polston is thankful that the threat on her home wasn’t what she feared initially, but she’s hoping this gator invasion is a rare occurrence.
“We love it here. It’s beautiful,” she said. “We think this was rare. We hope it was rare.”