TOWN IN Poo and urine keep families indoors
RUNNY bat manure is splattered all over the yard of Cyril King’s Charters Towers home.
It covers the ground in tancoloured splotches. It is on Mr King’s car and on the walls of his house. The urine falls intermittently from where the bats hang in the tamarind and mango trees in his yard.
Sometimes it is like light, drizzly rain. It’s a yard where wearing a hat is not an option. You could be excused for wearing a raincoat.
The 60- year- old cancer sufferer, who has had part of his tongue removed, can’t sleep because of the noise.
There are more than 200,000 bats in the city area. All the city’s parks have been closed due to bat excrement on the ground and in the air.
Mr King can’t spend any time outside because of the bat urine and faeces that rains from the trees in his yard.
Charters Towers is a city being held to ransom by bats.
Mr King and other residents, especially those in the area around Lissner Park, have had their lives turned upside down by the bats.
Nathan Beitz, 28, lives in Jane St with partner Che and their two- year- old son Alex.
Alex is not allowed to play outside in the yard. Mr Beitz said they cannot hang out washing because of the urine and faeces from the bats. The noise the animals make day and night is deafening.
“We keep the doors and windows shut and day and night run the airconditioning. We have to do that to keep cool and to keep out the noise and the stench,” he said.
“Che is worried about lice and mites and diseases. She doesn’t like Alex being out in the yard. And there’s the poo. People are finding dead bats in their yards. It’s disgusting.
“People around here bang pots and pans to move them on, but they come back after a few minutes.”
Mr Beitz said he was as- tounded no government body could say “enough is enough” and do something that would restore quality of life for the people who have become prisoners in their own homes.
“We use our clothes dryer all the time. Everyone does here. You can’t hang your clothes out or they get covered in urine and manure. It’s really driving up our cost of living,” he said. “The bats are