Our Story

In 2019 we bought a vacation home in Lake Arrowhead that was in pretty sad shape. The property had literally been on the market for over 365 days.  We actually looked at the house four separate times before deciding that because of the extraordinary view we should take the plunge and start a major remodel. 

Our realtor told us about bears during escrow and we nodded and didn’t really think about it again.  Once we got the remodel done and the house was looking lovely we stayed for our first weekend with our family. The next Sunday we are back at home and we get a text from the neighbor while we are at church. The bear has gotten into our trash and spread it on the street and down our slope.  So up the mountain we go for a 2 hour one-way drive to pick up the trash and clean up the mess. 

So I went in search of a bear proof solution.  I purchased expensive straps, reflective tape and lights to keep the raccoons and bears out of our trash.  Well you can guess how that worked. It didn’t!  We kept getting calls that the bears had gotten in our trash. So up the mountain we go for another 2 hour one-way drive to pick up the trash and clean up the mess. One week we went up the mountain three times to clean up bear messes.  Talk about a bear headache! 

I then purchased 5 trash cans on rollers from Home Depot that were large and I purchased a bear specialty clamp to keep the lid shut.  Those might have worked, but then we then get a call from Burrtec who handles trash collection in Lake Arrowhead. They tell us our new garbage cans are too big for Burrtec to pick up manually and they will not empty our trash.  They are bigger than the 32 gallon limit and they don’t have handles.  Could this be any more complicated? 

Then in desperation I found these containers that aren’t garbage cans at all.  They are containers that are made for industrial hazardous waste. And you guessed it, they had screw-on lids. The first week we tested the “screw-on lids” and sure enough no calls to clean up the bear mess.  The next time we are on the mountain with our family we see that one of the lids has a bear claw puncture in the top but the trash is safe under the screw-on lid. And yes we have a Ring system so we checked it out on the video.  There was the bear trying to get in the trash and then give up. That was almost two years ago and when we have the lids screwed on, we’ve never had a bear mess.  EVER!  

So we decided we needed to share the good news.  We needed to provide garbage cans for the residents of Lake Arrowhead. And that is how Bear Proof California was born.  Text us today and see how we can help eliminate your bear trash headaches today.