After the bear is finally evicted from his California home, a neighbor lets the bear live under his house

need to know

• A California resident shared footage of a large bear living in a crawl space under his home

• There have been recent reports of more than 550-lb. Bear lives in Altadena, Calif.

• Previous problems with removal include capturing the wrong animal and it being too large to tranquilize

One California community is getting more than it can handle as sightings of the large mammal become more common.

An Altadena resident shared footage with Los Angeles’ KTLA of a large bear cozying up in a crawl space under their home, the news station reported Monday, Jan. 12.

A man who lives less than half a mile from where the bear stayed under another man’s house for six weeks did not want to identify or reveal his exact location. He says that the animal has been there for at least four to five days.

While it remains unclear whether or not it was the same bear, which was estimated to weigh more than 500 pounds, video broadcast by the news station showed the man’s perspective as he eased his way under the house, filming the wild animal resting in the distance as a flashlight shone in its direction.

“They need to close the crawl space,” Deborah Wilson, who lives nearby, said with a laugh as she reacted to the news in an on-camera interview.

“What are you going to do? Grab a bear and tell it to get out? I mean, they’re huge, and they’re very strong,” Wilson continued. He and his family have sealed off their crawl space as a precaution.

She added that wildlife such as bears and coyotes are not an uncommon sight in the area.

“We had a problem. We had some coyotes living in a crawl space a few blocks away and had garbage for a few years, and that was their home,” she said. “If the bear doesn’t get you, something will. So you better be close.”

After 37 days at the Altadena home, resident Kenneth Johnson threatened to sue the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in December 2025 for failing to remove the mammal.

“This has gone on for a long time, and it’s something they have to deal with. It’s a tagged bear. They’ve dealt with it before. They chose not to euthanize it, and now it’s back, and it’s going to keep doing it,” he said at the time, per KTLA.

Johnson encountered a series of unfortunate events while searching for a solution — including shutting off his gas service just before Christmas to avoid damaging the lines under his home.

In mid-December, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife set a trap to humanely remove the animal, but they inadvertently caught a different bear. That one was safely released to a suitable shelter nearby, a spokesperson for the organization previously told PEOPLE.

Johnson set up the cameras when he noticed damage to his home, including a broken entrance to his crawl space.

“When I saw it all torn up, I thought, ‘He can’t be under,’ because there’s no way the bear could fit,” Johnson previously told NBC Los Angeles of the 550-lb. the bear

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“I don’t know how it got under there. It must be a degenerate. This thing is so big its belly touches the ground,” Johnson said. Los Angeles Times December 1, 2025, at interview. “It’s uncomfortable going into the kitchen thinking there’s a bear there. I don’t think he’ll do me any harm unless he’s near the house when he comes out.”

On Jan. 6, the BEAR League “was able to remove the animal after causing extensive damage to the home’s heating ducts,” the group said on Facebook.

Read the original article on People