Shock as Bear Opens Door to Man's House: 'I Nearly Fell off the Couch'

A bear has been filmed standing on her hind legs and opening the door to a home in California.

In unsettling footage shared with Newsweek by security-camera firm Ring, the black bear can be seen turning the handle on the screen door of a property in Half Moon Bay before pulling it open.

The clip was captured on the Ring doorbell camera back in July. It makes for astonishing viewing, with the bear demonstrating an unnerving level of human-like poise in getting the screen door open. A cub was also present during the attempted entry.

Thankfully, the door beyond it was locked; otherwise, the bear could well have done some damage to many of the valuables inside. She is not the first bear to try to enter somewhere she shouldn't. However, it's the nature of her attempted break-in that makes it so shocking.

Nobody was inside the property at the time, but the footage caused some alarm for Rick, the homeowner. "I was in LA when I got the [Ring] notification that somebody was at my front door," he told Ring. "I nearly fell off the couch when I saw it was a bear and their cub on the Live View."

Things would have been decidedly worse for all involved if Rick or anyone else had been in the property at the time.

The incident should serve as a warning to Rick, with bear activity in the region expected to increase towards the end of the year. The U.S. Forest Service says, "as winter approaches, bears will forage for food up to 20 hours a day, storing enough fat to sustain them through hibernation."

Living in close proximity to bears, therefore, comes with its own unique set of challenges, as the video demonstrates. "Bears that are accustomed to people can become too bold and lose their fear of humans," the U.S. Forest Service adds. "To avoid this behavior, do not let bears become habituated to human sources of food."

Rick has a pretty good idea of what the animal in the video was trying to do. "We do see bears in our community quite often, although I only installed the Ring doorbell a few weeks ago, so this is the first time I've gotten them on video," he said. "A few weeks before, we left the key in the bear box, and the bears got into the garbage. I think he may have been looking for the key."

However, while Rick understands the likely motivations, the video was something of a surprise: "I've never seen a bear open a door before." Thankfully, little to no damage was done to the property. "They barely left a paw print," he said.

Even so, Rick adds that this is not the last he has seen of his attempted intruder. "We live next to National Forest land. The houses in our neighborhood are easy pickings for many bears."