It started with a huff, a stomp, and a growl that sounded like a death warrant. For one Los Angeles resident, the urban wildlife nightmare became reality when a 500lb black bear decided to squat in the crawlspace beneath his house.

The terrifying ordeal, captured on "critter-cams," reveals the absurdity of modern human-animal conflict. "I watched as a massive shape emerged from the hole," the homeowner recounts. "My brain refused to believe it. The bear looked too large to fit in that tiny gap." But fit he did, squeezing his massive frame into the foundation like a furry, lethal liquid.

Life With the Beast

The homeowner describes a life split in two: the mundane routine of coffee and emails upstairs, and the primal terror of a predator sleeping inches below his feet. "It was as if I was the guy in the upstairs apartment and he the tenant below," he says. Except this tenant weighed a quarter-ton and could kill with a swipe.

Attempts to evict the squatter bordered on the comical. Blasting music, stomping on the floor, and projecting "bad neighbor fratboy energy" only seemed to make the bear more comfortable. He had found a rent-free cave in the Hollywood Hills, and he wasn't leaving.

• The Butterscotch Trap: Wildlife officials stepped in with a trap baited with sardines and cherries. When that failed, they switched to butterscotch. "I cannot tell you how haunting butterscotch becomes when you associate it with a bear living under your floor," the writer notes.
• The Escape: Watching the bear contort himself through the tiny vent became a nightly horror show. "Every time, the last thing to disappear was his enormous paw."

Nature Strikes Back

This story is a darkly funny but chilling reminder of how wild our cities still are. As urban sprawl eats into habitats, the bears are adapting—by moving in with us. For this homeowner, the bear eventually left, but the phantom smell of butterscotch and the memory of that growl remain. He now checks his crawlspace vents. Daily.