After installing a camera to investigate strange damage around his home, Kenneth Johnson finally caught the culprit: a tagged bear squeezing beneath the crawl space and returning nightly.
Kenneth Johnson thought he had a routine maintenance issue when he noticed bricks pried loose from the crawl-space entrance beneath his Altadena home this spring. By June, with more damage mounting, he installed a camera. Last week, the truth emerged: a bear had moved in and was living under his house.
“I don’t know how it got under there. It must be a contortionist,” Johnson, 63, told The Los Angeles Times. “This thing is so big its stomach touches the ground.”
Footage captured by Johnson shows a brown bear with a yellow tag on its left ear struggling to squeeze through the narrow entry point. Authorities have not yet confirmed the bear’s species or sex.
A STARTLING ROAR — AND A VERY TENSE MORNING
Though Johnson says the bear usually keeps to itself, it did roar at him early Friday — a moment he describes as terrifying.
“I was shaking like a leaf for half an hour,” he said. Even his cat, Boo, is afraid of their newfound downstairs neighbor.
Johnson believes the bear leaves during the day to forage and returns to the shade of the crawl space to sleep at night. Neighbors have spotted the bear wandering the area before, indicating it may have been roaming locally for some time.
WHY WILDLIFE IS MOVING INTO NEIGHBORHOODS
The discovery comes after a year of heightened wildlife displacement in the region.
The Eaton Fire, which burned more than 14,000 acres across Altadena and Pasadena in January, pushed many animals out of their natural habitat.
In February, Pasadena residents found a 500-pound bear — nicknamed “Yogi” — living beneath their home after evacuations. That bear was relocated to the Angeles National Forest.
Johnson, a YouTuber who creates model-train content, says wildlife encounters in Altadena have always been common — bobcats, skunks, even an eight-foot boa constrictor once discovered by his father. But drought and fire have intensified them.
THE BEAR’S FUTURE: “I FEEL OKAY WITH IT… BUT I WANT HIM TO GET OUT.”
Johnson contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, though he hasn’t heard back yet due to the holiday weekend.
He’s already picked out potential names: Ursa if it’s female, Barry if male.
He last saw the bear around 6 a.m. Saturday, noting that “it hasn’t left since.”
“I feel okay with it,” Johnson said, “but I want him to get out.”
