Repairman Finds Big Alligator in Suburban Chicago Basement

A man who kept an alligator in the basement of his suburban Chicago home for 26 years now faces a misdemeanor charge thanks to a repairman who found the massive pet in the basement — possibly the biggest ever found in an Illinois home.

The American alligator was 6-foot-long and weighed more than 200 pounds. Charles Price fed the reptile raw chicken breasts, according to authorities, and he took his beloved pet for walks in the back yard of his Wentworth Avenue home in south suburban Lansing. (The world’s biggest alligator measured 15 feet and weighed 1,000 pounds, but most grow to about 11 feet and 500 pounds.)

Price acquired his pet at a swap meet when it was just an itty bitty baby, just a few inches in length.

Sgt. Bill Shannon, of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation Police, said this is the biggest alligator he’s ever taken into custody.

“I used to get two or three of them a year,” he told nwitimes.com. “Usually they are three, three and a half feet.”

Price, who’s now charged with misdemeanor unlawful possession of an endangered or threatened species, built a large cage in his basement for the gator. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service classifies American alligators, native to the southeastern United States, as threatened.

A call to Price’s home was not answered.

Alligators can live to be 100 years of age. With many years ahead, the gator will spend the rest of his years in an undisclosed location, according to Shannon, who was called in by Lansing police on Jan. 16 to get the alligator out of the basement.

“I don’t know if you can consider a wild animal of that nature tame, but he was able to handle it with some success in the years that he had it,” Shannon told nwitimes.com.

Illinois Department of Natural Resources photos