Anyone who’s spent time at Incline Pines has likely seen one of our neighborhood bears wandering through the community, often searching for an unlatched bear box.
But this afternoon (Wednesday July 29) homeowner Jim McPhee, Unit 34, reported confronting a black bear in his house!
“A bear just entered our house through an open door on my lower level,” Jim said. “! was sitting at my computer two feet away. I jumped up and he saw me, did a one-eighty, and went back out the door.”
Jim would be the first to recognize it might have been unwise to leave the door open despite the beautiful weather.
“My bad,” he admitted.
But even though Incline bears can be surprisngly bold when they think a meal is nearby, this may be the first time we’ve heard of a bear actually entering a residence at Incline Pines– though bear break-ins have been well documented elsewhere in the Tahoe basin.
Jim said the bear didn’t go far immediately after leaving his home.
“He went down to my Jeep, stood up and clawed at the driver side window. He eventually left the parking spaces and headed down the slope past some lower units and we lost him.”
“Jim got lucky that the bear saw him and left,” said HOA Board president Heidi Burton. “We had one walking the property over the weekend. We need to remind people to close lower level doors and windows, keep food out of cars, and keep cars locked”
A young Incline black bear smells groceries through an open car window with the driver behind the wheel (May 2025)