A hilarious video filmed by a doorbell camera captured an alligator standing on its hind legs and “knocking” on the door of a Florida home, with the homeowner later estimating that the gator was between seven and eight feet tall and explaining that the visit was far from a normal occurrence in her neighborhood.
For context, on April 25, 2025, Nathalie Gaines of Lake Mary, Florida, got a major surprise when she checked her doorbell camera feed after hearing strange noises outside her door. According to press coverage of the incident, Gaines was greeted by a large alligator, which had gotten up onto its hind legs and used its front legs to bang on the door before getting back on the ground and slinking away.
According to coverage from Fox 35 Orlando, Gaines “heard a knock on the door, and then nothing else.” Gaines added, “I waited a little while, and then I heard it again.” When she went to check her doorbell camera feed, she saw “a full-blown alligator sitting at our front door.”
Continuing, Gaines told the press that the alligator had attempted to knock on the door. She said, “The first time, when it knocked on the door, it stood up and kind of banged on the door and then laid back down.” Gaines, using her hands to describe the height of the gator, went on to say, “Its face ended here [gestures] and its tail kind of curled up and ended up here [gestures].” She added, “It was big!”
Moving on, Gaines told the press that she had seen other big creatures in her neighborhood, but that this was the first time she had seen an alligator. “We always see wildlife,” she told the press, “But not up this close, knocking on the door.”
Concluding her interview, Gaines explained that she called an alligator trapper, but the gator ended up walking away unprompted. Gaines recounted how the alligator moved through a neighbor’s yard before heading to nearby water. “He just wants to be left alone,” Gaines explained.
Gaines is reportedly not the only Floridian to get an up-close-and-personal visit from an alligator this year. According to a March 12, 2025, story from WSVN News, a couple in Fort Myers, Florida, walked into their home and discovered an alligator lying on the floor. The husband, Paul Quinn, said, “It’s a Sunday morning, and I got an alligator in my house?” Quinn continued, “I got up from the chair, and I could see the door; there was something wrong with the screen. I’m like, ‘What happened?’ As I’m coming around here, I hear like an air noise, like a hissss.”
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Continuing, the wife, Mary Jo Quinn, went on to explain that the alligator got aggressive once a trapper arrived, saying, “That alligator was fighting him, and his — if you could call it — a tail, his body just swiped my baseboards. Swiped my baseboards.” Paul added, “He bit this chair, and he had it in his mouth, and he was swinging it around. We’re going to keep all those bite marks on that chair. It’s going to go back here, and then it’ll be a conversation piece.”
Watch the alligator’s visit to Nathalie Gaines’s home:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video