Altadena, California man finds bear living in crawl space underneath home

ALTADENA, Calif. — A Southern California man got a big surprise last week when he found a 500-pound bear living underneath his home.

Ken Johnson, a local product photographer, said it all started last Tuesday when he took a look at one of his surveillance cameras and noticed a bear in the crawl space under his Altadena house.

“In June, I walked by there and noticed the crawl space had all been torn up,” Johnson told ABC7 Eyewitness News on Monday. “The bricks had been pulled out, the frame had been ripped up apart, so I put a camera there to see what was doing it.”

He said he had seen a YouTube video of another Altadena resident who had a bear living in its crawl space, so he started to wonder.

“It looked just like my crawl space, so I thought, ‘There’s possibly a way,'” he said. “Next thing I know, my camera picks up a bear crawling out from under the crawl space – and now he’s been in and out all week.”

Johnson said the bear’s right under his kitchen, so he hears the bear moving around.

“I thought he’d be long gone by now. It’s unnerving,” he said.

In fact, Johnson said he even came pretty close to the bear when he was trying to change the camera’s batteries.

“I went to replace the batteries and this huge growl came from underneath the space and scared me to death,” he said. “I couldn’t stop shaking. It’s the strangest sound, too. It’s like a roar but it’s got this hiss on it too, like a dragon. I mean, it’s just incredible, and coming out from underneath that space, it just reverberates even more … just horrible.”

Johnson said he contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and was told a biologist from San Diego will look into the case. Eyewitness News has also contacted the department and is awaiting a response.