WLOS employee wakes to bears in his car at North Asheville home

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — A WLOS employee is sharing his story after a family of bears caused serious damage while searching for snacks in his car in the early hours of Thursday, June 27.

Drew Farris, a marketing consultant at WLOS, heard some loud noises outside of his North Asheville residence and he was surprised when he found out why. The North Asheville resident says it all happened between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Thursday morning.

"There was a lot of commotion at my house last night at about 1 a.m. I texted my roommate and asked what was going on," he said. He let me know there were some bears in my car."

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Farris said when his roommate saw what he thought to be just a mamma bear and a cub, he grabbed the car keys and flashed the car lights. Farris said this scared the bears away, or so he thought.

"We thought they had just gotten in and we scared them off. We did not go outside the first time. We just beeped the car (alarm) from inside and made the lights flash and they ran off. The doors were closed at that point, and I swear I locked the car after that," Farris said.

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A few hours later, Farris was awoken once again, this time with his car alarm going off. But this time, Farris’ roommate was not the one who set it off. He suddenly spotted the bear trying to get to her cub.

"There was a bear cub inside the car that I assume was in there from the first time. It could have been closed inside the car the first time around or it could have come back and somehow got back in and shut the door behind it," Farris said. "We went back outside and made sure mamma bear was nowhere to be found. Then we opened the door and the cub went on his way."

There was damage to the car, including several claw marks on the exterior and paw prints, along with feces inside. Most of the damage on the inside was to the upholstery. Farris said his insurance is paying for all the damages.

"They told me that this is a lot more common than you might think," Farris said. "We live in western North Carolina and this is just a part of living here."