VISTA, Calif. (KGTV) -- For the fourth time this year, bees are to blame for the pain of San Diegans. This time, bee exterminators say that this is the angriest swarm of bees they've ever seen.
The swarm of bees is so dangerous, they killed the family's dog. The other is still missing. Now, the homeowners are left with a $3,600 bill to rid their home of the insects.
“I got a call from both my neighbors within a couple minutes and they said there’s just chaos going on over here and screaming and yelling," said homeowner Mike Rodgers.
He and his family were out of town for a wedding when they got those calls. The chaos began when his girlfriend’s daughter and her friends got home. They thought nothing of it — until they got out, and a few bees turned into an angry swarm.
“I was out shopping with some friends, and we pulled up and as we got out of the car one of them said something about bees," said Madeline Martinez, the daughter of Rodgers' girfriend. "Then all of a sudden we were literally attacked by bees.”
The group jumped back in the car to escape the insects, but the bees didn't stop there.
“(The bees) kept attacking us in the car,” Martinez said. “I got stung in the back of my head, the other girls got stung on the face and their arms and their back.”
Rodgers rushed home and called an exterminator. The exterminators told him that after many years in the business, this was the largest hive with the most aggressive Africanized bees they’d ever seen.
Exterminators told Rodgers his Vista home was infested, with nearly $4,000 dollars in damage.
"They were coming in through the vents, they were coming in through the light fixtures in the ceiling, they were everywhere," Rodgers said.
Unfortunately, the bad news didn't end there. Rodgers also faced a tough conversation with his 12-year-old son, Zayne.
“The next day, my dad came over and he told me something really important," Zayne said. "That Toby died.”
Toby, the family’s little dog, had been found stung dozens of times and killed. The family's other small dog, Flauna, hasn’t been seen since.
“I fell really horrible right now," Zayne said. "Because everyone was crying.”
The family tells 10News that the exterminators aren't done yet. They still have to come back to the house and rip up a portion of the roof so that they can locate the queen.
