Sandra Frosti said she heard a noise in her home in Oldsmar, north of Tampa, late Monday night and when she went to check it out she saw the reptile next to the refrigerator.
"All I did was look at it and go, 'Oh my God,'" she explained. "I turned around-did not use the phone in there. I went back into the bedroom, closed the door, and phoned 911," a local Tampa bay news portal cited Frosti as saying.
"There's an alligator in my kitchen!" she told emergency services over the phone.
The operator initially thought she meant an iguana, but when a trapper arrived they indeed saw an eight-foot gator weighing about 230 pounds. The animal had apparently broken through the back porch, and entered through an open sliding glass door.
On entering Frosti's home the gator strolled into the living room, down the hall and into the kitchen.
Local officials believe the animal was after the family cat.
No one inside the house was injured, apart from the alligator who cut itself on a plate in the kitchen but was safely removed.
