Famous mountain lion creeps up on maintenance workers under a house

Two maintenance workers at a Los Angeles house have come eyeball-to-eyeball with a mountain lion, which had been hiding under the floorboards for at least 12 hours.

The tagged mountain lion, known as P-22, left his home in the woods of Griffith Park around midnight and took refuge in the shallow crawl space below the home of Jason and Paula Archinaco, NPR reported. (LINK)

As the workers moved to install a security system and entered the crawl space, they came uncomfortably close to the animal.

Authorities were alerted, and wildlife officials tried to lure P-22 out of the home by using a tennis ball launcher, prodding him with a long pole and shooting him with beanbags.

None of these attempts were successful.

P-22 eventually left on his own accord about three hours later.

The mountain lion, who was tagged three years ago, became a minor celebrity after being photographed next to the famous “Hollywood” sign by a National Geographic photographer. (LINK)

A Facebook page and two Twitter accounts have been set up in the mountain lion’s name.