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Bear In The House An Unwelcome Guest

“Unexpected, and unwelcome.”
    East Lake County resident Sara Irrgang was settling into bed around 10 p.m. one night last week when heard a bang outside of her bedroom.  And then a larger bang.  She rose and opened her bedroom door to find a large Florida Black Bear in her home’s central living room.  The large bruin had broken through Irrgang’s front door and was beginning the process of searching the home for food.
    “It was about 25 feet away from me,” she said recounting the episode this week, with the bear responding to her presence by alternately standing on its back feet and then lowering its head in a process she described as similar to a porpoise nosing through the water.
    Irrgang said she feels the bear might have been attracted to the smell of cat food in the house, and was able to push through the front door due to its hinges being somewhat weak at the time due to shorter than ideal screws holding the door up.
    However it was able to get in, the bear couldn’t get back out.
    “I kept yelling ‘get out of here’, but it couldn’t because the door had swung closed behind it.”
    The bear standing on its hind legs was quite a sight, and taller than Irrgang, who describes herself as ‘bear aware’ due to decades of living on her family’s 45 - acre farm in the Round Lake Road area east of Mount Dora.  Over the years, bears have been visitors on the farm, but this is the first time one had entered the home.
    After about five minutes, the bear was still in the great room crashing around, and Irrgang’s son and grandson had arrived from another house on the property to help, though directing the bear proved hard to do, as it showed little interest in going back through the front door that was now being held open.
    “I was still shouting at the bear.  He’s diving down, jumping up and knocking things over.”
    Finally, the bear had enough, and went to the home’s sliding glass back door, which it slid open. 
    “It knew how to open the sliders.”
    Once on the enclosed back porch, the bear had finally had enough and crashed through a glass window and escaped the home.
    “All of a sudden there was a crash - he jumped through a glass window.”
    And off into the night.
    All told, the episode lasted about 20 minutes, and no one, including Irrgang’s dog -which was crated during the incident, or a cat, which stayed hidden for more than a day before reappearing on the porch, was injured during the incident.
    “My poor cat wasn’t seen for 24 hours,” she says.
    “It was an exciting mess.”
    Irrgang considers herself a bear fan, and counts herself among the longtime county residents who are saddened to see ongoing  habitat loss that has made human/bear interactions more common.  She holds no ill will toward the bear, but says her first order of business, besides covering the broken window, was to install longer screws on her front door hinges to make the unit stronger and hopefully bear proof.
    “I feel sorry for the bears, they have lost so much habitat.  But I would prefer they don’t be in the house.
    “I was glad it left.  He felt trapped once he was in, and you could tell he was uncomfortable.” 
    Irrgang shared her story this week in hopes of reminding other area residents to take a look at their own homes to make sure they are secure from a potential unwelcome house guest.
    “Anyone else is a candidate for a visit, too.”