MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. - It wasn't the Easter bunny that startled a South Carolina homeowner and his family. It wasn't even a burglar.

The Post and Courier of Charleston reports 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.

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

State law requires a nuisance-trapped alligator to be killed, but the family didn't 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.