It was not the Easter bunny that startled a South Carolina homeowner and his family. It was not even a burglar.

Susie and Steve Polston were worried that someone was trying to get into their home on Sunday. Instead, Polston’s 16-year-old son found the intruder — a nine-foot alligator crawling on their second-story porch, reports the Associated Press.

The family says the alligator climbed a back stairwell to the porch, crunched through the aluminium screen door and nestled between a sofa and a swinging bench.

State law requires a nuisance-trapped alligator to be killed, but the family did not want that. The other choice was to wait it out, but the alligator was eventually euthanized.

Last year, an alligator rang a doorbell, while another fell asleep on a porch.