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Thu 23 Mar, 2006 08:44 pm
Alligator Knocks on Fla. Woman's Door
BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) - So now the alligators are going door to door. When Lori Pachelli heard someone knocking at the door of her home in a gated community in this southwest Florida community earlier this week, she looked out to see an unwelcome visitor on her front stoop: an 8-foot alligator.
The bull gator, which had wandered up from the pond behind the house, had a bloody lip from banging its head against the door.
"He was pretty big, pretty aggressive," Pachelli said, adding that the gator may have followed her home from walking her cocker spaniel, Trooper.
Pachelli's husband, Mike, said he sped home after his wife called him in hysterics. The animal remained at the Pachellis' door for about an hour before going back into the lake, where trapper John French captured it later.
French said it's not unusual to find male alligators in some pretty interesting places this time of year.
"You're starting into what's called the crawl season, the breeding season," he said. "We get them out of front porches, out of garages, out of swimming pools."
The Pachellis said they never dreamed an alligator would venture that close to the house.
"I've never seen them walking around (the neighborhood), let alone banging on my front door," Lori Pachelli said.
My community has many ponds. Each has its own resident alligator, or alligators, according to its size. I have not personally seen this, but I have been told, on good authority, by a number of neighbors, that they have seen alligators moseying from pond to pond, usually at night, during mating season.
That, in my opinion, Phoenix, is the most, well certainly close to the most, I have ever seen you, and I mean ever, use the comma.
There was only one that wasn't necessary.
So, Phoenix, if you hear a knock on the door at night time, it's probably not the Girl Scouts selling cookies. :wink: