{"id":126868,"date":"2026-01-09T17:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126868\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T17:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:55:11","slug":"california-homeowner-rolls-out-unwelcome-mat-for-black-bear-living-under-his-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126868\/","title":{"rendered":"California homeowner rolls out ‘unwelcome’ mat for black bear living under his house"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALTADENA, Calif. \u2013 A huge black bear that made its den in the crawl space under a Los Angeles area man\u2019s house<\/a> for more than a month has finally been evicted.<\/p>\n

Altadena resident Ken Johnson said the animal began denning beneath his home around Thanksgiving, twisting gas lines and toppling bricks as he came and went. Surveillance video showed the bear easily tearing away screening and other obstacles and squeezing through a small opening. <\/p>\n

Johnson told KTLA<\/a> he first asked state wildlife officials for help, but the air horns and paintball guns they deployed didn’t work. So he turned to BEAR League, a California-based nonprofit that bills itself as specializing in \u201cliving in harmony with bears.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 it estimated weighs more than 500 pounds (227 kilograms) \u2014 to encourage the animal to leave. <\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it was so fast,\u201d Johnson told KTLA. \u201cThese guys went in, they crawled in behind him and, boom, he was out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group then placed an \u201cunwelcome\u201d mat, which delivers an electric shock, at the opening. Video footage showed the bear returning to the house, stepping on the mat and then running away. <\/p>\n

Messages were left Friday with Johnson and BEAR League.<\/p>\n

Johnson said in a GoFundMe account he set up that the animal caused thousands of dollars in damage, which has been particularly tough to deal with because he lost his job after last year’s Eaton wildfire<\/a>. He said he’s seeking to repair the damage and make his house livable again.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALTADENA, Calif. \u2013 A huge black bear that made its den in the crawl space under a Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,44431,44623,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-126868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-ken-johnson","12":"tag-oddities","13":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}