Home Care In Altadena, CA

A California man’s sugary scheme to smoke out a 500-pound bear from beneath his Altadena home went sideways fast, thanks to an unexpected second bruin crashing the operation.

Ken Johnson, a product photographer, was already battling the first bear holed up in the crawl space under his kitchen when another lumbering visitor strolled up his driveway around 2 a.m. Tuesday, according to Eyewitness News.

Johnson first suspected trouble when trash cans were toppled and bricks were knocked loose around his property. Motion-sensing cameras revealed the truth, a hulking, yellow-tagged bear rumbling around beneath his floorboards. It popped out briefly Saturday and again Sunday night for about 20 minutes.

“It’s scary when I don’t know where it is,” Johnson told The Post.

He contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, filing an online report Monday. CDFW spokesman Cort Klopping confirmed the agency “made contact with the homeowner based on the report he gave our biologist” and has been advising him since.

Klopping told The Post the animal, estimated at 550 pounds from agency data, isn’t considered a public threat.

“There’s no reason to believe additional response is needed,” he said. “It doesn’t appear the bear is posing a threat to the public.”

CDFW has urged Johnson to keep his distance, monitor the bear remotely, and wait until it leaves on its own.

Biologist told Johnson to secure the access point in a substantial way once the bear exits, set up motion-detecting wildlife sprinklers to scare it off if it tries to return, and place ammonia-soaked rags near the entry to deter it.

Klopping said the bear’s behavior is typical for the San Gabriel Valley, where the temperate climate means black bears rarely hibernate. What Johnson’s bear likely did, he said, was “find a den, a warm place where it’s comfortable.”

Agency records show the bear was previously tagged about 10 miles away. CDFW’s data shows “no difference in activity before the recent wildfires and now,” and Klopping said any tie to the Altadena blaze is speculation.

He added that neighbors in the area should also lock down their crawl spaces to prevent unwanted visitors.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman announced charges against five unlicensed contractors following an undercover operation in Altadena’s Eaton fire zone.

“Unlicensed contractors … are essentially trying to take advantage of people at some of their lowest moments and trying to profit off their tragedy,” Hochman said Thursday in a joint news conference with L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the unincorporated community.

The five suspects — Guillermo Ramirez, Edgar Geovanni Lopez Revolorio, Melvin Hairon Mejia Ordonez, Daniel Escarzaga and Andrew Escarzaga — were charged in connection to rebuilding or attempting to restore homes in Altadena without a license. They’ll be arraigned on Jan. 8.

Hochman referred to the defendants as “criminal contractors” at the news conference Thursday. He said the details of the undercover operation will be revealed in court.

The charges came as a result of a collaborative investigation involving the district attorney’s office and the Contractors State License Board, which regularly conducts undercover operations across the state to bust unlicensed contractors. So far this year, they’ve held stings in , and .

Typically, the stings entail investigators posing as homeowners to solicit bids from contractors without licenses.

In California, a contractor’s license is required for any project over $1,000, and operating without one can lead to misdemeanor charges resulting in up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Each defendant in the cases Hochman announced faces a $10,000 fine and up to three years in prison. Though contracting without a license is normally a misdemeanor, it is a felony when done in connection with an area damaged by a natural disaster, such as Pacific Palisades or Altadena, Hochman said.

“If you are one of these unlicensed contractors, we’re gonna come after you. Every single person you deal with is someone who might be an undercover operative working for law enforcement,” Hochman said. “Get the heck out of our community.”

Contracting scams popped up repeatedly in the months after the January fires, especially in Altadena, where homeowners rushed to rebuild shortly after their homes burned down. In September, that two families were suing a contractor who promised to handle their entire rebuilds but disappeared after receiving retainer payouts of $33,678 from each family.

Hochman said unlicensed contractors often quote projects at half the cost of licensed contractors since they don’t have to pay for permits or insurance.

Barger explained that hiring unlicensed contractors can lead to higher costs, significant delays or unsafe work site conditions.

“It often costs more in the long run,” Barger said. “And sometimes, they run away with your money.”

On its website, the Contractors State License Board has to check contractors’ names or license numbers.

All five men arrested in the undercover operation did not actually perform any work on a home, according to Hochman, who said some other fire-affected homeowners have reached out to prosecutors to identify other unlicensed workers. More charges could be coming, he said. Hochman said he is launching a broader effort to protect fire victims looking for cheap repairs.

Asked whether he had concerns about the possible immigration consequences of such an enforcement effort — given the Trump administration’s sporadic arrests at L.A. courthouses and the fact that many unlicensed contractors cannot get state approval because of their immigration status — Hochman said the operation had nothing to do with immigration enforcement “one way or the other.”

“Are you the bear guy?” asked the neighbor who walked up Kenneth Johnson’s driveway.

Johnson said yes. A 550-pound black bear was still wedged in the crawl space under his Altadena home, as it had been since Sunday, giving him his 15 minutes of unwanted fame.

The homeowner, who lives across from the canyon where the devastating Eaton fire sparked in January, is no stranger to bears. Residents say Altadena’s bear problem has been escalating for years. Johnson shared video from a few years earlier of a large orange-colored bear crossing his driveway, and recalled looking out his window one day only to see a bear’s head resting there.

While speaking with The Times in his front yard on Wednesday, Johnson noticed a fresh pile of bear scat on the lawn next door. He was nervous to let more people onto the property because he’d been told he could be sued if the bear attacked anyone.

Bears have long been frightening residents and enjoying their trash while state wildlife experts seemingly struggle to find effective solutions, said Johnson and his neighbor Mel Peters.

The homeowner, who described himself only as “rattled,” had prepared a trash can and sandbags to place in front of the entrance once the bear left. He’d done nothing but talk to the media and prepare since his Ring camera captured the bear moving in, he said.

Johnson had hoped that running noisy appliances — the dishwasher and the laundry spin cycle — would scare the bear away, but all the noise managed to do was frighten his cat. The last time the bear left was Sunday, he said, to rifle through his trash cans for 20 minutes before returning to the crawl space.

The bear, tagged by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife as 2120, is male and around 550 pounds, a department spokesperson confirmed. It had been moved in the last year from Altadena and was relocated about 10 miles away from Johnson’s home but returned in the last five months, according to their records.

Peters said he had a close encounter with a bear trapped under his house, too. The bear had swiped at him, but he was able to chase it out using bear spray. It tore through a different opening to the crawl space and didn’t come back, Peters said. He suggested that Johnson use some well-known methods to get the bear to leave: mothballs, ammonia-soaked towels, bear spray. He warned that the fumes would come up through the house, though, possibly causing trouble for Johnson or his cat.

“The more I learn about them,” the scarier the situation gets, said Johnson, who previously worked as a model train product photographer. Bears can run up to 35 mph, even if they appear to lumber around slowly because of their size.

In the days after the video of the bear shimmying in and out of the tiny crawl space went viral, he said, incautious members of the media had been growled at or swiped at as they tried to get closer with cameras or approach the crawl space entrance. Fearing an attack that could leave him liable, he eventually taped off his property. Now the bear was just angry and might have retreated to the back corner of the space, he said.

Initially, it had seemed that Johnson was on his own with his unwelcome new live-in. When he first contacted the Department of Fish and Wildlife, he was told it was understaffed and that moving the bear was “unsustainable,” Johnson said. Although Johnson sympathized with the department’s lack of manpower, he said his hope was that wildlife officials could flush out his quarter-ton visitor and relocate it somewhere safer.

On Thursday, the department sent representatives to his home to investigate and see if something more could be done, a spokesperson confirmed.

Officials laid out bait — in cherry and caramel flavors — in Johnson’s backyard in the hopes that the bear would leave the crawl space sooner rather than later.

“There is hope that the bear will exit once activity in the area dies down tonight,” a department spokesperson told The Times on Thursday evening.

The January firestorms drove bears out of their charred habitat and increased the number of home invasions. But Peters insisted the area’s issue with bears started getting bad eight to 10 years ago.

The 26-year resident said he was concerned that a refusal by wildlife officials to remove or relocate the bears could result in a serious incident.

“They’re getting too bold and too familiar,” he said. Like clockwork on trash day, bears come through and knock over cans, Peters said. He and his neighbors see a large bear at least once a week, if not more often.

Johnson said he hoped that the media focus would bring more attention to the neighborhood’s problems.

“None of us want to kill bears, but human lives matter too,” Peters said. He hopes the state wildlife department and local politicians will be more proactive, but “they don’t do anything until a disaster happens,” he said.

A large black bear under a house in Altadena, despite wildlife officials' efforts to coax him out of the crawlspace he’s been living in for weeks.

Biologists set up a trap for the roughly 550-pound male bear in a neighbor’s yard and sprayed more caramel- and cherry-scented lure around the property earlier this week, according to Cort Klopping, a spokesperson with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

But a member of the media — who did not have permission to be on the property — touched the trap and tripped it closed Friday morning.

“This was something that should not have happened,” Klopping told LAist, adding that officials are surprised by the incident. “This is a trap that's, you know, built and produced for a 500-plus-pound bear, so it's potentially very dangerous for the average human.”

The trap now will be locked over the weekend, Klopping said. Wildlife officials are expected to re-bait it with chicken, shrimp, apples, oranges, peanut butter and sardines to try to trap the bear again early next week.

Wildlife officials believe the bear has been spooked by increased activity around the home, including media crews outside and helicopters overhead.

The hope was that the bear, which neighbors have nicknamed Barry, would feel more comfortable leaving the crawlspace once activity dies down — but that hasn’t happened yet.

“It's our opinion that the stimulation that's been going on surrounding the home since it's gained so much interest has been a limiting factor in what could have normally been successful resolving the issue,” Klopping said, including the lure and the trap.

Biologists have made several visits to the Altadena home, including earlier this week when they set up the trap in a neighbor's yard with a smorgasbord of bear-worthy baits.

Barry came out of the crawl space for a few minutes Thursday night to snack on the treats but didn’t spring the trap before retreating back under the home, Klopping said.

It’s the same trap — and the largest available — that helped authorities capture and relocate Barry earlier this year after the Eaton Fire. The animal was moved about 10 miles away to the Angeles National Forest.

Wildlife personnel lured the bear out from under a different Altadena house and into the trap in January with rotisserie chicken, apples, butterscotch and peanut butter.

Klopping said that experience may be adding to the trouble this time around.

“If he's familiar with the trap … he may be hesitant to go into it for that reason,” he said. “We do think that might also be playing a role in why he's not gone into the trap so far.”

Wildlife officials say they’re hopeful the trap will be successful after they reset it early next week. In the meantime, the department is monitoring cameras placed around the crawlspace so the homeowner can secure the access point if Barry does leave.

Officials also are urging people in Altadena to steer clear of traps and other wildlife equipment.

“We're going to continue to stay on top of this, do whatever we can to kind of help the homeowner and continue to assess if more of a response may be needed at a further date,” Klopping said.

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Officials are now turning to a new strategy in hopes of luring a 550-pound bear out from underneath a California home.

The brown bear has been cooped up under Altadena resident Ken Johnson’s home for more than a week in what he has jokingly referred to as a “bear-y” serious situation.

Johnson had attempted to get the massive animal out using jelly rolls and sweet treats, but to no avail. Now, officials from The California Department of Fish and Wildlife have intervened using sweet-scented spray to lure the bear out.

“This is a chemical compound that is highly concentrated and has a very potent smell of caramel and cherries and that is in an effort to coax the bear out from where it is right now” CDFW spokesman Cort Klopping told The Post.

“Caramel and cherries would be something bears are very attracted to” Klopping notes.

Remote monitoring cameras have also been placed around Johnson’s property to keep an eye on the bear to see if and when it will make an attempt to squeeze out from under the home.

Officials hope to board up the entrance to the crawl space when the bear leaves.

“The bear has not come out of the crawl space yet” says Klopping, who adds the bear is most likely spooked by all the activity and has been growling.

“I had to call multiple media outlets not to fly helicopters. This bear doesn’t want to be around people its going to need quiet for it to exit.”

If the bear stays Johnson could have a 550-pound roommate for the chilly season.

“He just wants to live here” says Johnson.

The public has been warned to stay away from the area.