NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans East man is scared to step foot in the apartment where he has lived for 15 years.
That's after he had to defend himself from an attack, by flying critters.
It started out with a bubble in the ceiling, that became a drip, that became a crack, and then one night, David Glapion's bedroom ceiling partially collapsed. And those sounds he had been hearing before, and telling the apartment manager about, came flying out. It was bats.
“And I said, ‘Get away! Go ahead! Get back. Get back.’ And he was coming at me, flying at me, and I said, ‘Get back!’ And when I hit at him, fanned at him, I closed my air conditioner vent and closed my room door, and ran downstairs,” said David Glapion, 61.
But you see, David can't run at all. He is physically disabled, and mentally as well. That condition was brought on by swallowing a Mardi Gras bead as a child, depriving his brain of oxygen. He says the people at The Willows apartment complex in New Orleans East, won't make it right.
“They say well be downstairs. I be safer downstairs in my front room, and sleep on the sofa downstairs,” David recounts.
“And I'm like, ‘Long as he downstairs, y'all not going to get him a hotel room, or try to relocate him into another apartment? Come on,’ I said. I said, ‘This is a health issue. This is important,’” David’s sister, Karen Glapion told the people who manage the complex.
Karen Glapion is acting as his advocate. She insisted they relocate him to another apartment.
“He don't [sic] have any money to pay. They wouldn't even get anyone to transfer his furniture to a new apartment. They told me that they didn't have enough manpower,” she said.
“Bat stuff all over it. Bat drippings all over, my, I lost suits, clothes, shoes, and everything. I don't have anything,” said David.
When you open the door to the apartment that leads to the stairs to get to the first floor, the smell of ammonia is overwhelming, and the bat droppings, or the guano, grow a fungus that makes spores. If you breathe those in, they can cause serious illness.
So, WWL Louisiana called The Willows office and got voicemail.
WWL: “This is Meg Farris from Channel 4 News…”
They did not get back to us.
For now, nothing in the apartment has changed in a month. Karen has taken her brother David into her home.
“I'm glad that God gave me a sister,” David said crying. “I'm so grateful, and I appreciate my sister for helping me. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't know what to do.”
Bats are nocturnal, meaning they come out at night and sleep in the day.
The Glapion family says maintenance workers tell them they have seen the bats come out as well.
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