9 alligators rescued from Pennsylvania home after neighbor find one on front porch

See you later, alligators.

A Pennsylvania man opened his front door to find a large alligator stretched across the threshold earlier this week – leading to at least nine other chompers being rescued from a nearby home.

“It was definitely crazy. It would’ve been a rude awakening if I would’ve walked out and seen it,” Tony Gularsky, of Kiski Township, told WTAE of the moment he learned about the alligator that was spotted on his front porch Thursday.

The reptile — which Gurlasky estimated was about “5 to 6 feet long” — was first seen by his neighbor.

Gurlasky had just been discharged from the hospital Thursday, so the neighbor called the 60-year-old’s friends in order to warn him. 

“[They] called me and said, ‘Whatever you do Tony, don’t come out on your porch — there’s a big gator,” he told the Tribune-Review of the shocking phone call.

“It was stretched out in front of his doorway. He couldn’t get out [of his house] if he wanted to,” one of Gurlasky’s friends, Jason Pisarcik, 45, told the outlet.

Gurlasky, however, was shockingly calm about the gator –— which was eventually removed by the authorities — and told Tribune Live he was not surprised by the jaws-ome visitor because his other neighbor, Dominic Hayward, was known to keep about 10 of the scaly creatures at his house down the road.

“It was just a matter of time before they [got] loose,” Gularsky shrugged.

“I ended up being the unfortunate one — it had to be on my porch.”

Hayward, 26, was arrested by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission last month for improper sale and transportation of certain animals, the Tribune-Review reported.

He posted some of his scaly pets for sale on Craigslist recently, and referred to them as “cool,” the outlet noted.

As of Friday, he remains in custody in Armstrong County Jail for violating parole, the Tribune-Review said.

As a result of the alligator sighting on Gurlasky’s porch, authorities launched a full-scale round-up of the nine remaining gators left at Hayward’s property, Armstrong County Humane Officer Amber Phillips told Tribune Live Friday morning.

The dirty backyard pool enclosure had broken, resulting in the reptiles running amok in Hayward’s residence.

“It was exhausting and a slow process, but it was completed and no one was injured,” Phillips said of the rescue.

“They [alligators] may not be an ideal pet, but they are creatures that matter and deserve the best if nature can’t be it for them. I’m relieved they’re in a much better environment and are going to have a life they deserve in full when they’re transported to a sanctuary.”

The gators were all piled into the back of a truck for transport to Nate’s Reptile Rescue, where they are currently being cleaned and prepared for transfer to sanctuaries in the south, a photo obtained by the Tribune-Review showed.

One of them even had its mouth taped shut.

Hayward’s largest pet alligator, Thor, is still inside the house, and is not a threat to the public, Kiski Township Police Chief Lee Bartolicius insisted.

The raid on Hayward’s property is the latest in a string of hair-raising gator incidents in the Kiski area, the Tribune-Review noted.

The first — nicknamed “Chomper” — was rescued from the Kiski River in August and will serve as an animal ambassador, the outlet explained.

But a second gator — a baby male named Neo — remains at large after his owner, Austin Randall, 23, unsuccessfully tried to give him to Hayward, Bartolicius said.

In Pennsylvania, it is legal to own non-native amphibians and reptiles as long as they are not released, according to the Tribune-Review.

There is also no state permit requirement to keep gators and similar creatures, and the state does not regulate reptiles, the outlet noted.

In the wake of Chomper and Neo’s apparent escapes, Kiski Township officials moved to clamp down on gator ownership in the area — but were quickly met with sharp-toothed criticism.

“We don’t need any more rules and regulations here. We moved to the country to live in the country,” one Kiski Township resident told the Tribune-Review after a contentious township supervisory meeting last month.

The backlash to the proposed rules — which one official admitted were put forward “prematurely” — was so intense that Supervisor Dylan Foster ripped a copy of the draft in half at the end of the discussion.

Neighbors, meanwhile, are relieved that Hayward’s gators are mostly cleared away and bound for more appropriate homes.

“It’ll be a lot safer around here. You never know when they’re going to come loose,” Pisarcik said.