A 9-foot alligator made its way to a second-story porch early and refused to leave early Easter Sunday.

The Post and Courier reported that Susie Polston of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, took a nap and was awakened by a racket on her porch. She was shocked to discover the large lizard, who climbed a 15-foot stairwell and ate through an aluminum screen door before making itself comfy between a sofa and a swinging bench.

“We thought it was a joke maybe and we knocked on the window and it moved. So we were like, ‘no, this is a serious prank if somebody did this,’” Polston’s husband Steve told WCIV.

Gator Getter Consultants agent Ronnie Russell claimed he diligently worked for nearly two hours to safely remove the gator with no success. While the agent worked, the family was inside busy getting household furniture to barricade their glass door.

“A 5-footer, we could have put a dog stick on it and dragged it out,” Russell told The Courier. “One that large, he likes to grab onto things [to fight].”

Though South Carolina requires nuisance-trapped alligators be killed, agents typically remove the animal from the property first. The Polstons didn’t want to see it killed but that possibly meant waiting days for the obstinant animal to leave on its own accord. The large lizard was subsequently euthanized, the paper reported.

The family said they installed a “gator-proof” door on Monday. They also plan on getting a gate for the stairwell landing.

“I feel like I’ll never be able to open these doors again without coming through here and looking out here and scanning the whole porch,” Susie said.

[Featured Image: Steve Polston/WCIV]