Kristine Harder was woken up at 1 a.m. Wednesday morning to the sound of her Fox Terrier barking at a bear busting through her front door.
“I was just in overdrive running to lock my bedroom door. My heart was so loud I wouldn’t have been able to hear the bear walking in if it had been,” Harder said. “I think it just opened the door and left when it heard the barking.”
The bear had smashed her car window before breaking the front door of her home on Chestnut Drive just off north Sawmill Road. On Sunday, a bear tore her garage’s side door and pushed in the garage door.
“The bear had come to my garage Sunday morning and ate some strange things. I had fertilizer in there,” Harder said. “I had valentine soap and candles that I had totally forgotten about. They were strawberry scented.”
Harder said she had stored trash in her car on Sunday and stored it there until she could take it to the landfill on Tuesday when it opened.
“I put that in my car and parked it in front of my bedroom window. Nothing happened,” Harder said. “I got rid of the trash. Nothing was spilled out.”
Harder said she’s seen a different bear wandering around her neighbor’s house Wednesday afternoon. She said she’s worried about the bear returning to her house.
“I’m worried because it’s hit two out of my three doors already,” Harder said. “I’m worried tonight I may have it come to the backdoor. If you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know happened. I had a good life. What the heck.”
The damage to Harder’s property is the latest on a long list since spring. Most recently, bears broke into multiple storage areas at Ma’s Mini Storage on Small Tracts Road and ripped through the insulated wall of a locked and secured outbuilding in the same area. Police receive have received dozens of calls on a weekly basis and 17 bears have been killed by law enforcement and residents.
At press time, the borough’s Bear Task Force was scheduled to meet Thursday, Sept. 9 at 2 p.m. A synopsis of that meeting will be printed in next week’s edition.