A Queensland council is considering a property buyback scheme for residents plagued by growing numbers of “loud and smelly” flying foxes.

Gympie council, in south-east Queensland, about 170km north of Brisbane, has endorsed a long-term plan to better manage the bats, with a large colony encroaching on a residential area. The plan offers solutions from vegetation management and dispersal to a potential scheme to buyback properties adversely affected by the bats.

The plan recommended that council advocate to state and federal government for the buyback scheme and request funding to cover expenses associated with vegetation management and dispersal.

Commissioners gully in Gympie is home to a nationally significant roost of flying foxes, which are protected under state and federal law.

The mayor of Gympie Regional Council, Glen Hartwig, told Guardian Australia the buyback plan would involve “20 or more” affected properties, and is reliant on state and federal government funding. He said council’s attempts to manage the bats were “limited by legislation”.

“The bottom line is that they’ve [the state and federal governments] created a problem,” Hartwig said. “They should fund a solution.”

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Adam McKeown, a CSIRO senior ecologist, said the gully forms part of a wider trend of bats roosting in urban areas in the last 20 to 30 years.

“The reality is, they do smell, they do poo a lot in the camps. They do make a lot of noise at four o’clock in the morning. So yes, if you’ve got a large camp near you, then you generally will have some problems with it,” he said.

McKeown told Guardian Australia it’s not clear why bats are being driven towards urban areas, but suggested they may be attracted to the lack of predators, increased water supply and ease of navigation due to lights.

“In the bigger cities, it might be partly to do with food, but in places like Gympie, they’re roosting in Gympie but they’re still doing most of their foraging out in the native forests.”

The ecologist, who has been working with flying foxes for two decades, said there is no easy answer to manage flying foxes in urban areas and called it “a very difficult problem” for councils.

“You can disperse the camps that are in an urban area, but the animals actually want to be in that urban area,” McKeown said.

Kyla Reen, who has lived a few metres from Commissioners gully for the past five years, complained of black dust from flying fox poo frequently entering her unit through the flyscreens.

“It has gotten worse,” Reen said, “because last year [the bats] would fly away during the winter break, while it was cold, but this year they haven’t left at all.”

The 44-year-old keeps her bedroom windows shut to prevent the dust covering her clothes and furniture.

“I do try to stay inside a fair bit, because even when you go out on to the verandas, it’s just in the air, and you can see it on the railings,” she said.

Reen added: “I can’t hang my washing out outside. So, I basically just dry it inside with the fan that I’ve got in my lounge room area.”

She also struggles with the noise made by the bats.

“The noise is horrendous and it doesn’t stop,” Reen said.

Hartwig said he has spoken to the state government.

“We’ve had a very productive conversation with them, and we are discussing changes to legislation that might assist,” he said.

A spokesperson for the federal environment department would not commit to funding a buyback scheme, but said it had guidelines in place to assist local governments respond to the impacts of flying foxes in regional towns and urban areas.

A spokesperson for the Queensland environment department would not comment on a proposed buyback scheme, and said the government is committed to supporting Queensland councils in managing flying fox roosts through a local government grant program.

Flying foxes are legally protected under the Nature Conservation Act in Queensland and under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act at a federal level.