One homeowner in California has found an unexpected and rather unwelcome guest in his crawl space. It’s a hefty black bear, weighing around 500 pounds.
Ken Johnson, a resident of Altadena, noticed signs of a furry intruder when he observed his trash cans tipped over and bricks around his house dislodged. To get to the bottom of the situation, he set up motion-detecting cameras to monitor his property. These cameras soon revealed the culprit.
The footage showed the enormous bear squeezing into a snug 2.5-by-2.5-foot crawl space, coming and going as it wished.
It wasn’t just lounging, either. The bear was seen moving down the driveway, rummaging through garbage, and causing more damage around the property.
“We see wildlife here all the time, but we’ve never had our crawl space destroyed,” Johnson commented. He wasn’t aware of the bear’s presence in his crawl space until he reviewed the video last Tuesday, even though he first noticed the issue back in June.
On Saturday, the bear briefly emerged from its hiding spot and again made an appearance for about twenty minutes on Sunday night.
“It’s unsettling not knowing where it is,” Johnson explained. Just the other day, while changing the batteries in his camera, he was startled by a loud roaring and hissing that caught him off guard.
To complicate matters, Johnson is stuck navigating a bureaucratic maze. After reaching out to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for help, he found himself frustrated by the process, having only managed to file a bear report online.
He submitted his report on Monday morning, expressing hopes that someone might be able to calm the bear or sedate it so it could be relocated, although he isn’t too optimistic about that happening.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife hasn’t provided any comments on the situation.
Given the circumstances, it looks like Johnson might need to take matters into his own hands. He’s considering using sweet dinner rolls to lure the bear out and sandbags coated in pepper spray as a preventative measure for his crawl space.
“It’s quite disturbing, especially when I can hear it rummaging around under the kitchen,” he added.
