‘Scrawny’ black bear trashes SLO County Airbnb in search of a snack
When Adam Wolfberg checked into his Airbnb at Santa Margarita Ranch last week, he hoped to see some wildlife — but he got more than he bargained for when a bear broke into the house.
On May 19, Wolfberg and some friends arrived at the Airbnb for their annual spring bike trip.
The historic property includes three units nestled into a pocket of ranch land off of Old Highway 101.
On that same day, a member of the group left a cooler in her car — with the door open. When she returned to the car, she discovered the cooler “had a massive bite in it,” which seemed to belong to a bear, Wolfberg said.
As the group prepared to leave for their first bike excursion, they spotted a “slightly scrawny” black bear walking down the driveway before disappearing into the trees, he said.
“We didn’t really think much of it,” he said, but they locked their car doors just in case.
A few days later, one of the guys saw bear prints outside his car.
Finally, on Friday, the group returned from a long bike ride and found the main ranch house ripped to shreds — with bear-sized paw prints left on the floor.
“The Airbnb was pretty trashed,” Wolfberg said. “The furniture was trashed, and the walls were all banged up. The bear had pulled the refrigerator out from the wall and had clearly been in the freezer.”
“My first thought was, is the bear still in the house?” he said. “I was like, ‘Did you guys look around everywhere to make sure that we’re not going to turn a corner and there’s going to be a bear sitting on a bed like Goldilocks?’”
Luckily, the bear left before the group arrived, and no one was hurt.
Wolfberg and his friends think the bear entered through the front door.
“The door must have been unlocked, and the bear pushed through,” he said. “I can’t imagine that the bear turned the knob.”
Then, the bear seemed to have punched the screen out of an open back window to escape the house, he said.
“The crazy thing is, when we got back that afternoon, the door was locked, and so somehow the bear inadvertently closed the door, and it locked behind the bear,” he said. “I can only imagine that’s why the bear was tearing everything up, until it figured out how it could get out the window.”
The Airbnb host swiftly sent people to clean up the house, and Wolfberg and his friends stayed there another night.
“We take guest safety very seriously, and we sent staff members as quickly as we could after we got the report,” Paso Robles Vacation Rentals operations manager Beth Burk said.
The company doesn’t have access to security footage, so they don’t know how the bear entered the house, she said. Luckily, the bear didn’t break any windows, doors or cause structural damage to the house.
“We were as caught off guard, surprised, as the guests were,” Burk said. “We’ve just never dealt with this at any of our properties.”
The company offered a partial refund to the guests in accordance with Airbnb guidelines. No one has reported seeing a bear on the property since.
“We really don’t anticipate it will ever happen again,” Burk said.
What was black bear doing at SLO County vacation rental?
California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Brandon Swanson said the black bear was likely about 2 to 3 years old.
“The surrounding area is excellent bear habitat and is close to Los Padres National Forest,” he said in an email.
The bear was likely searching for food, as takeout was left out in the house near an open window, he said.
“While it’s not a common occurrence, it does happen from time to time,” Swanson said. “Bears are opportunistic omnivores and generally pretty smart.”
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife doesn’t plan to relocate the bear, he said.
“Like in most cases involving bears and people, it’s not the bear’s fault and steps could have been taken to avoid the situation,” Swanson said. “The property owner is aware of this and making the appropriate changes such as getting a dumpster with a metal lid that can be secured.”
Nonetheless, the guests were surprised when their Airbnb turned into a Bearbnb.
“I’ve heard of, of course, bears breaking into cars and trashing cars, but I’ve never heard of a bear going into the house,” Wolfberg said. “It’s a great story.”
