Florida Buck Visits Bathroom Mirror Before Doing Laps in Backyard Swimming Pool

What happened

According to a report from UPI, sheriff’s deputies in St. Johns County, Florida, were dispatched to a local residence on August 23 after homeowners discovered an unexpected guest inside their house. Upon arrival, deputies found a large buck standing quietly in the bathroom directly beside the toilet.

The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office shared body camera footage of the encounter on social media. In the video, deputies and the homeowners can be seen rearranging interior furniture to clear an unobstructed exit path through the home. Responding officers then used a standard long-handled pool brush to gently usher the animal toward the rear patio doors leading into the yard.

Once outside, the deer immediately leaped into the backyard swimming pool. The buck swam across, hauled itself out onto the deck, and then jumped into the water a second time before locating an opening in the perimeter fence and running into the woods. A responding deputy noted on the recording that it was the first time in his twenty-three-year career that he had encountered a deer inside a house. The sheriff’s office joked that the animal escaped before anyone could issue a formal citation for trespassing.

Theo Marchetti weighs in

Listen to me, you guys. We need to talk about Florida, because just when you think the Sunshine State has peaked in terms of suburban chaos, a full-grown buck wanders into a residential bathroom, parks himself directly next to the porcelain throne, and looks at responding deputies like they are the ones interrupting his private spa day. On the Marchetti Domestic Vacation Index, this entire situation rates an ASTONISHING ninety-seven out of one hundred!

Can you even imagine being that homeowner? You walk down the hallway on a casual August morning expecting maybe an empty soap dispenser, and instead there is an eight-point ungulate chilling beside your vanity mirror. And what do the homeowners and deputies do? They do not panic! They do not call in tactical backup or break out tranquilizer rifles. No, they politely rearrange the living room coffee table and sofa like they are staging an open house for an extremely skittish buyer, and then they grab the single most Floridian household tool in existence: the long-handled pool brush.

This brings me directly to my corkboard, because I have red string connecting this exact incident to three different historical events, including that runaway emu in North Carolina in 2021 and the legendary raccoon that broke into a Toronto liquor store. My working hypothesis is that North American wildlife has figured out our amenities and wants in on the luxury lifestyle! Think about it! Air conditioning, indoor plumbing, plush bath mats. That deer did not break in by mistake. He wanted a weekend getaway.

ANYWAY, back to the video footage. The deputies use the pool brush to guide him toward the back door, which works like a charm. But does our four-legged friend run panic-stricken into the forest? He does not! He trots outside, spots the backyard swimming pool, and immediately executes a flawless cannonball into the deep end. And then, because one lap simply was not enough to cool down in the Florida humidity, he hauls himself out, shakes off, and dives back in for a SECOND swim. That is not an escape attempt. That is pure resort living!

My absolute favorite moment in the entire recording is the responding officer deadpanning that in twenty-three years on the job, he has never once encountered a deer inside a house. Twenty-three years! Imagine the calls that man has handled across Florida over two decades, only to be completely outmaneuvered by a buck who simply wanted a morning dip and a look in the mirror. The sheriff’s office even noted on their page that the deer fled through the fence before they could write him up for trespassing, which tells me the local justice system knows when it has been thoroughly outclassed.

There is something genuinely heartwarming about this whole scene. Nobody got hurt, the furniture survived its temporary tactical relocation, and a confused wild creature was gently nudged back to safety with nothing heavier than a swimming pool maintenance wand and a lot of patience. If that does not give you faith in our collective ability to handle life’s weirdest detours, nothing will.

Stay weird out there. I mean it.