Southern California man gets an unwanted housemate: A black bear in his crawl space

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/12/2025 (309 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ken Johnson, 63, just got a new roommate last week — a black bear living in the crawl space under his home in Southern California.

The bear was seen on video footage clambering out from beneath his house Tuesday. He had installed a camera near the space back in June when he saw what looked like damage caused by an animal.

Nothing showed up on the camera until last week. And now he’s trying to figure out how to make it leave.

“It’s a huge bear,” Johnson said, describing it as tall as a table and bigger than the trash bins in front of his house. “It’s really unnerving because I don’t know if he’s going to tear everything up under there, I don’t know how to get him out.”

Johnson lives in Altadena, an unincorporated community northeast of Los Angeles that was devastated by the Eaton Fire in January. The fire killed at least 19 people and scorched thousands of structures, but it also tore through the Angeles National Forest, displacing wildlife from their natural habitats and destroying their food supply.

Shortly after the fire, at least two bears were found taking refuge in people’s evacuated homes in Altadena. State officials removed a massive, 525-pound (240-kilogram) adult male bear from a crawl space under a man’s home in January because utility crews could not get in to restore his power.

The bear was too large to be tranquilized, so employees from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife set a bear trap before taking it to the Angeles National Forest to be released with a tracking collar, the state agency wrote on social media. In February, another homeowner found himself with an unwelcome roommate, snapping pictures of a bear lounging by the pool and bringing food back to the crawl space at night, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“In the foothills of bear country, it’s important to close crawl spaces with bear-proof material in advance of winter months to discourage bears from denning and damaging property,” the CDFW wrote on social media after that incident.

While it’s not cold enough in Southern California for bears to hibernate, they will engage in a behavior called “denning,” where they take long naps but may emerge periodically to eat.

Since Tuesday, Johnson’s bear has come and gone from his house several times. He can hear “all kinds of clunking and booming” under the floorboards, and the bear rummaged through his trash cans on Sunday evening before retreating back to its chosen home.

It has dark brown fur with a tan snoot and two tan marks on its chest. Other neighbors have seen the same bear around the area before and call it Barry, although Johnson said he doesn’t know if the bear is male or female.

Johnson reached out to local law enforcement regarding the bear after it growled at him when he was changing his camera batteries. They told him to call state officials, but he was eventually directed to fill a form out online reporting a bear sighting. He checked a box for “Property Damage” and wrote, “It’s living under my house.”

So far, he hasn’t gotten a response.

CDFW spokesperson Cort Klopping said Monday afternoon that field experts were working on two other bear incidents in the region and would hopefully be able to respond to Johnson “soon.” He confirmed that the yellow tag on the bear’s ear indicated it was the state agency’s jurisdiction and not federal.

Bears in crawl spaces are a common occurrence this time of year, with teams potentially responding to five of these incidents in a week, Klopping said.

If the bear isn’t removed soon, Johnson mused, he might have to take matters into his own hands.

“The plan is, I’m going to buy a bunch of dinner rolls, and line them down the street up to the hole, and have some sandbags ready,” Johnson said. “When he comes down the street to get the dinner rolls, throw sandbags in there and cover it with pepper spray, and just hope he stays away.”