FAIRFIELD, CA - There have apparently been bats in Fairfield's Grande Vista Apartments for years, but just not like this, according to resident Dan Calloway.
"The moment I locked my patio door, three more came out of nowhere in my kitchen, then a fourth one, then a fifth one," Calloway recalled.
At dusk, as Calloway and his neighbors look on, the bats begin coming out of their apartment building in two's and three's.
"Here they come. Now they coming out!" shouts Calloway and a girl shrieks as Calloway and others duck their heads.
The bats flutter away into the night sky to begin feeding on insects and bugs.
The problem is, the bats have started getting into apartments.
"There was one down here this morning," Calloway said as he displayed a piece of plywood he's used to cover heating vents in his walls.
As the evening deepens, Calloway and a dozen neighbors watch dozens and then hundreds of bats fluttering out from a vent beside the apartment attic.
"Shut my vents down, put boards over every vent," Calloway explains.
So far, animal control and a private pest control service have removed about 20 bats from his apartment. But Calloway said he's learned it will take a professional to get them out of the entire building for good.
"Who can set up traps that will let them out and once they get out, it won't let them back in."
But he said the homeowners association and multiple landlords have not been able to agree on a deal to get someone to get the bats out.
He knows the bats are an important part of the ecosystem.
"A gentleman told me today, he said, 'they won't hurt you, they'll kind of add to the environment,'" Calloway said. "And I told him, 'maybe they won't but they'll make you hurt yourself running from them.'"
In the end, Calloway said, it comes down to his wife.
"If she can't sleep, I can't sleep. If she ain't happy, then I ain't happy." Calloway said she hasn't had a good night of sleep in five days.
News10/KXTV