{"id":78960,"date":"2025-12-03T00:47:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/78960\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T00:47:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:47:07","slug":"southern-california-man-gets-an-unwanted-housemate-a-black-bear-in-his-crawl-space-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/78960\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern California man gets an unwanted housemate: A black bear in his crawl space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">LOS ANGELES &#8212; Ken Johnson, 63, just got a new roommate last week \u2014 a black bear living in the crawl space under his home in Southern California.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Nothing showed up on the camera until last week. And now he&#8217;s trying to figure out how to make it leave. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIt&#8217;s a huge bear,\u201d Johnson said, describing it as tall as a table and bigger than the trash bins in front of his house. \u201cIt&#8217;s really unnerving because I don&#8217;t know if he&#8217;s going to tear everything up under there, I don&#8217;t know how to get him out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">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, <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/los-angeles-eaton-fire-altadena-burn-recovery-03109dd851b7c568917a39c932b3d7f5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">displacing wildlife<\/a> from their natural habitats and destroying their food supply.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Shortly after the fire, at least two bears were found taking refuge in people&#8217;s evacuated homes in Altadena. State officials removed a massive, 525-pound (240-kilogram) adult male bear from a crawl space under a man&#8217;s home in January because utility crews could not get in to restore his power. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">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 <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2025-02-19\/bear-moves-into-pasadena-home-crawl-space-after-eaton-fire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Times reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIn the foothills of bear country, it\u2019s important to close crawl spaces with bear-proof material in advance of winter months to discourage bears from denning and damaging property,\u201d the CDFW wrote on social media after that incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">While it&#8217;s not cold enough in Southern California for bears to hibernate, they will engage in a behavior called \u201cdenning,\u201d where they take long naps but may emerge periodically to eat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Since Tuesday, Johnson&#8217;s bear has come and gone from his house several times. He can hear \u201call kinds of clunking and booming\u201d under the floorboards, and the bear rummaged through his trash cans on Sunday evening before retreating back to its chosen home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">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&#8217;t know if the bear is male or female.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">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 \u201cProperty Damage\u201d and wrote, \u201cIt&#8217;s living under my house.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">So far, he hasn&#8217;t gotten a response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">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 \u201csoon.\u201d He confirmed that the yellow tag on the bear&#8217;s ear indicated it was the state agency&#8217;s jurisdiction and not federal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">If the bear isn&#8217;t removed soon, Johnson mused, he might have to take matters into his own hands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">\u201cThe plan is, I&#8217;m going to buy a bunch of dinner rolls, and line them down the street up to the hole, and have some sandbags ready,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWhen 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.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES &#8212; Ken Johnson, 63, just got a new roommate last week \u2014 a black bear living&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[45447,2113,847,11604,7,9,8,5881,18,44623,13,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-78960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-45447","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-bears","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-california-headlines","14":"tag-california-news","15":"tag-climate-and-environment","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-oddities","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78960","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=78960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}