{"id":236847,"date":"2026-01-09T23:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T23:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/236847\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T23:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T23:10:08","slug":"unwelcome-guest-finally-evicted-as-huge-black-bear-living-under-home-is-moved-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/236847\/","title":{"rendered":"Unwelcome guest finally evicted as huge black bear living under home is moved on"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A huge black bear that made its home in the crawl space under a man\u2019s house in California for more than a month has finally been evicted.<\/p>\n<p>Altadena resident Ken Johnson said the animal began making its den beneath his home around Thanksgiving, toppling bricks as he came and went.<\/p>\n<p>Surveillance video showed the bear easily tearing away screening and other obstacles and squeezing through a small opening.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"427\" width=\"640\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/unwelcome-guest-finally-evicted-as-huge-black-bear-living-under-home-is-moved-on.jpg\" alt=\"A bear lies inside a crawl space beneath a home\" data-title=\"Bear Evicted\" data-copyright-holder=\"AP\" data-copyright-notice=\"Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved\" data-credit=\"Jae C. Hong\" data-usage-terms=\"This content is intended for editorial use only. For other uses, additional clearances may be required.\"\/>A bear lies inside a crawl space beneath a home in Altadena, California (Jae C.Hong\/AP)\n<\/p>\n<p>Mr Johnson told KTLA he first asked state wildlife officials for help, but the air horns and paintball guns they deployed did not work.<\/p>\n<p>So he turned to Bear League, a California-based non-profit that describes itself as specialising in \u201cliving in harmony with bears\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In a social media post on Thursday, the group said that one of its most experienced responders crawled beneath the home and got behind the bear \u2014 which was estimated to weighs more than 500lbs \u2014 to encourage the animal to leave.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"427\" width=\"640\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768000208_773_unwelcome-guest-finally-evicted-as-huge-black-bear-living-under-home-is-moved-on.jpg\" alt=\"Homeowner Ken Johnson stands outside his house\" data-title=\"Bear Evicted\" data-copyright-holder=\"AP\" data-copyright-notice=\"Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved\" data-credit=\"Jae C. Hong\" data-usage-terms=\"This content is intended for editorial use only. For other uses, additional clearances may be required.\"\/>Homeowner Ken Johnson stands outside his house (Jae C Hong\/AP)\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it was so fast,\u201d Mr Johnson told KTLA. \u201cThese guys went in, they crawled in behind him and, boom, he was out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The group then placed an \u201cunwelcome\u201d mat, which delivers an electric shock, at the opening.<\/p>\n<p>Video footage showed the bear returning to the house, stepping on the mat and then running away.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Johnson described having the bear around as \u201cunsettling\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Since the eviction, the bear has come back at least once before moving on, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A huge black bear that made its home in the crawl space under a man\u2019s house in California&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-236847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}