They bought a house in LA. The neighbours are bears - and they won't stay out of the pool

Black bears love lounging in Brian Gordon and Ricardo Martinez's pool in Los Angeles. As bear encounters increase across Southern California, the couple share videos of their furry visitors and reveal how they are co-existing with these wild animals.

When Brian Gordon first learned that black bears were swimming in the pool of the house he was buying in Los Angeles, he was very afraid.

"I'd never seen a bear in real life. I said, 'We'll just build a big wall with barbed wire,'" he recalls.

Four years later, Gordon loves nothing more than seeing a family of bears playing in his pool and running around his garden. The furry visitors stop by several times a week. (Scroll down to watch a video of the bears at play.)

"They are fine to come here and scratch on the trees, take a nap, and jump in the pool if it's hot, as long as we're not creating harm for them, or for ourselves," Gordon says.

Gordon and his partner Ricardo Martinez have made it their mission to peacefully share their pool and garden with the bears. But behind these charming videos of bears relaxing in their pool, there's a deeper story of vigilance and safety precautions that make this co-existence possible.

The couple live in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, in Southern California, home to around 1,600 bears. Their house is in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and borders the Angeles National Forest, which spans 700,000 acres (2,830sq km).

When the couple moved in, they started spotting bears almost immediately. They initially tried to chase the bears away by yelling, using air horns and occasionally a paintball gun with soft rubber pellets.

"But it felt horrible," says Martinez. "It did not sit right with us. We said that as long as they're not breaking into the home and getting into the trash, then they're ok to come by."

They sought an approach that would keep both themselves and the bears safe, despite close proximity. "We've since settled on less aggressive means, and honestly, they work better for us," says Gordon.

Martinez says that black bears are "misunderstood". "They are not going to eat you," says Martinez. Black bear attacks are incredibly rare, with just one fatal attack recorded in California's history. 

The couple say they always keep a "healthy distance" from the bears and stay inside when the animals are around. There are sometimes unplanned encounters though. 

"We have had bears crashing barbecues," says Gordon. "But if they see you, they usually just walk away."

Gordon and Martinez say their favourite bear visitor is Maddie, who they first got to know as an incredibly inquisitive youngster in 2023. She loved playing in the pool and hanging around the garden.

"She is our golden child," says Martinez. A year later, Maddie returned with her cubs in tow. "Unfortunately she lost those cubs, so we went through an emotional rollercoaster with her," says Martinez. This year she has brought her new cubs to the house. "They're the most adorable [creatures] you've ever seen. They're so cuddly but also intimidating, with their long claws."

Punky is another "rambunctious yearling" who first came to the house as a cub with her mother, says Gordon. "She would pop all the pool floaties." She once climbed onto an inflatable cupcake and drifted into the middle of the pool. "She really stole our hearts that summer with her pool fun," says Gordon.

They nicknamed another regular visitor "Nappy", as the female bear likes to take long siestas while floating in the pool.

"She'll literally go to the steps of the pool, get in and put her head down. She's the only bear I've seen take hour-long naps in the pool," says Gordon. If she sees the couple, Nappy will huff at them. "She's a big mama bear and she's just a little grumpy about everything in life," Gordon jokes.

These characters are among a growing number of black bears trying to make a home alongside Californians, and often posing challenges for local communities. 

There are more than 60,000 black bears living in California, says Wilson Sherman, a research fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Black bears are an increasingly common sight in LA suburbs. "They are really intelligent, adaptable omnivores. They eat everything and have learned how to gain calories in places where people live," says Sherman, who studies how communities respond to black bears. 

Not all bear encounters are as positive as Gordon and Martinez's experience though.

"We do see incidents pretty regularly of bears raiding trash and entering homes," says Sherman. "The really sad thing about this is that when things go awry, it's usually the bears that end up paying the price. Several bears have been put down in the last few years.

A mother black bear called Blondie was euthanised by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in March 2026 after she swiped at a woman walking her dog in Monrovia. 

Blondie had also visited Gordon and Martinez's garden a few times and never caused any problems. Gordon organised a petition to try to prevent the euthanasia, which was signed by almost 6,000 people. "It was pretty devastating. Blondie resembles all mama bears, just trying to find shelter, to raise her kids and live her life," he says.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says that DNA testing revealed that the captured bear was responsible for the incident, as well as a previous attack on an elderly resident sitting on his porch in Monrovia in June 2025.

"Euthanasia is used only as a last resort when an animal poses a risk to public safety and cannot be safely returned to the wild," says a spokesperson. "Relocation may seem like a solution but is not an option when it could put public safety at risk. Bears have strong spatial memory and often return to familiar areas." The bear's cubs are being cared for at a wildlife rehabilitation centre and will be released into a suitable habitat when they are ready, he adds.

To minimise conflict with bears, Sherman says it is important that communities restrict access to attractants, such as rubbish bins and leaving food outdoors. 

"For a bear, finding a box that's full of pizza when you've been spending your time digging for worms and roots is a game changer."

Keeping neighbourhoods bear-free is a "collective training effort", Sherman adds. "You all have to be on the same page, because if one person's leaving a lot of really good stuff in their yard, the bear is very likely going to think, 'I should check out a handful of other yards.'"

Gordon says that they are "hypervigilant" when it comes to waste. "We don't even use our trash cans. I haul it to my office, a couple of times a week." They also keep their doors and windows closed and don't ever leave food in their car.

The couple say they have never had a negative encounter with any of the bears visiting their home. Martinez once found Nappy in the garage when he'd accidentally left it open. "We both startled each other," he says. "I slowly walked back, because you don't ever want to corner a bear." She emerged from the garage and went on her way, he says.

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Social media accounts, like Martinez and Gordon's, and home surveillance cameras are allowing people "to understand bears as individuals and providing an intimate look into their lives", says Sherman.

But he has some reservations. "There's always the risk of Disneyfication, of painting too fuzzy a picture. They're not teddy bears, they are still wild animals."

Sherman warns that it is important that bears and humans don't become too comfortable around each other. "Part of loving bears is creating healthy boundaries and setting the bears up for success when they inevitably pass through our neighbourhoods," he says.

Through their Instagram account dedicated to the bears, @poolbearlife, Gordon and Martinez hope to raise awareness of how people can behave safely around bears and how to mitigate unwanted encounters. They stress that their relationship with black bears is not something that could necessarily be universal. "This works for us, for where we live," says Gordon. 

"It's all about finding that balance with wildlife, how can we co-thrive?" says Martinez. "We live here and the bears live here. We don't want them to go anywhere."

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