FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Earlier this month, WPTV reported on residents of an affordable housing complex in Fort Pierce who came to us for help after dozens of bats blanketed the complex with feces, got into individual units and forced multiple people to get rabies vaccinations.
WPTV Investigates
Apartment complex infested with 'hundreds' of bats
Now, we've received additional emails that show both the Department of Health and the City of Fort Pierce knew about the infestation since 2023, and yet the infestation is still ongoing.
For resident Laiten Varner and her family, waiting is getting old.
"I don't know. April will be a year I've been going through this," said Varner.
We previously reported on the dozens of bats infesting Varner's unit at Pine Creek Village. Pictures show the bats inside and out of her apartment.
WPTV staked out the apartment complex and watched the bats come out of a hole in Building 7, yet her emails to management in April never led to any action until we reached out in November.
That's when residents said a tarp was installed over the opening, but it was gone after a day.
WPTV reached out to the Health Department multiple times to see what could be done but never responded.
Now, emails we obtained through a public records request show Fort Pierce Animal Control received a complaint about the infestation in September 2023, but never forwarded it on to the Department of Health until February 2024— five months after the initial complaint.
"It’s very frustrating, it's to the point where I don’t know who else to call, I've reached out to everyone I can reach out to," Varner said.
WPTV reached out to the City of Fort Pierce, who declined to comment, but in another email sent between Health Department staff last June, an employee again brought up the old bat complaint filed in September after receiving another infestation report from the complex that month.
In the email, the staff member writes they "decided to follow up on it a year after it was reported."
"Just because we’re in low-income housing don't mean you're supposed to lose hope in anybody, I mean when people need help, they need help," said Varner.
Emails show the Health Department proceede to contact Florida Fish and Wildlifen (FWC), the apartment complex's management company and residents affected by providing "bat education and rabies outreach materials," including a flyer telling residents to "never touch a bat".
"How are you going to tell someone not to touch it if it's inside my unit," Varner said.
Despite reaching out to the Health Department multiple times, WPTV has been left with unanswered emails and calls, and Varner still waits for help.
Varner took videos of a bat by her dog's crate and photos of bats trapped inside buckets in her house just two weeks ago.
"I'm at the point where I might go to Treasure Coast Homeless Society and ask for help, I don't know what else to do," Varner said.
FWC referred WPTV to the Health Department and the apartment's management when asked if they are investigating the issue.
Neither AMC Property Management nor the Health Department have responded to our requests for comment, but WPTV has reached out to multiple elected officials, some of whom say they're looking into this.
