This is the sight that Meyer and his partner came home to after watching "It".

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Michael Meyer

KAMLOOPS - Millions of people around the world were scared senseless by the movie "It" over the weekend, but a couple living in Kamloops found out what real fear feels like when they returned home from the theatre.

Michael Meyer and his partner noticed something was off as they pulled up to their home on Summit Drive at around 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 9. That's when they saw a seven foot tall black bear pacing back and forth in their driveway.

"We had just seen 'It' so we were already in a bit of a shaky mood," he says. "Then I saw what looked to me like a seven foot tall street person. I turned to my partner Sam and was like 'what is that?'"

Meyer caught some of the action on video:

Meyer had come face to face with the bruin that appeared to be looking for a way to escape and had even tried to get into the home. That's when the pair realized they had cornered the animal with their car.

"Where the fence is there's about a 20-foot drop so we're pretty sure the bear came from the direction that we were arriving from," he says. "So we were sort of trapping it without realizing it."

Meyer managed to capture the bear on video as it tried to go over the fence but soon realized just how far the drop is. It then takes another look inside the house to see if it can get in.

Here we see some of the damage done by the bear.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Michael Meyer

"I went and checked afterwards and you could see claw marks all the way down and he took a few chunks out of the fence. He did quite a number," he says.

Meyer says they hadn't left out any food and the lid of their garbage can had been closed, though it appeared the bear managed to get it open, which leaves them and their neighbours with the question of what else can they do to prevent bears from coming onto their properties. He says several people living around him have found their garbage cans tipped over.

"I'm on the strata board so I'll probably talk to them and say maybe we should talk to the city to see if there's another way to do the garbage," he says. "What I've read is that once a bear figures out how to get into your garbage they'll just keep coming back."

With that in mind, Meyer says he worries he will once again be face to face with a bear every time he leaves his home.

Complaints about black bears are on the rise across the province this year with the number of calls to the provincial conservation service up from 4,900 in 2016 to 8,900 this year. An increase in the bear population and a wetter than normal spring are among the causes for the increase.

For more on how to be bear aware, go here.

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