The Grant Family Fight Bats (yes like Dracula)

Strap yourself in because this story is about to get batty (video includes all the bat content we filmed). The Grant family (Isaiah, Monica, River (2 1/2), and Clara (4 months) faced a sudden infestation of bats in the living space of our home starting Wednesday night where we had to leave our rental house and are now displaced, the State health department has declared the house to be an imminent public health risk and the city of Savannah has now condemned the place (update: the city did not condemn it on Monday like we were told, instead they issued a violation).

Now you might think… “they are overreacting no way this can happen.” The wonderful team at Yates Astro with 30+ years of experience told us “I’ve never seen anything like this with the number of bats in the living space.” Plus these videos and pictures are proof of the battiest thing you’ve ever seen.

Throughout this we’ve gone above and beyond to report this to our management company and have a process. Having reported problems on a Monday we never heard from them till Friday (still haven’t once received a written communication or official offer of help in any way). Not only did they not offer any help but when we did finally talk on Friday they attempted to blame this on us, didn’t they believe us and offered no sympathy.

That leaves us in a position where we have very little idea of where to go for help, we’ve been displaced of our home, we face large medical bills due to needing to treat 4 people with rabies shots (it’s very serious, if you are exposed to it and get it you wouldn't know, but if you don’t get the shots within 10-14 days of exposure you will simply die later with no treatment). We couldn’t afford that risk for our family or the little ones who crawl around that space all day.

The health department for the state of Georgia has declared this to be an imminent public health risk (due to the risk of Rabies). Shoutout to Bethany Grubbs “Environmental Health Specialist at Chatham County Health Department” it’s been awesome to have people who are great at their job and want to help.

Now you might ask well why not pursue legal action? We have tried and are seeing what we can do but Georgia is a landlord friendly place and we can’t seem to find an attorney who will help us. Also having pursued a legal case once before in our lives for an auto accident is a long drawn out process that leaves a constant stress portal open in your life.

Second you might say… well what about insurance? We have renters insurance but they’ve stated to us that “a bat infestation is not a covered loss” and that despite the fact that the home has been declared uninhabitable that it would have to be for a reason that is a covered loss (Dracula is real, ya’ll).

We are asking for our friends, our community and any help. Our neighbor (my God bless her) has graciously let us stay in her house with her for the time being while we figure out our steps forward. But that still leaves us facing a massive headwind of getting our stuff out of the house, moving somewhere else (we can’t go back), paying for our medical bills (we have to go to the ER 3 more times for the shots as they are on a schedule) and finding some sense of normal through this. Help our family and these two cuties find a new place to stay. We will be using your help to cover what we estimate will be $6,000 in medical bills and what we guess will be $4,000+ in moving.

Enjoy the Batainment!