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High Point postman David Lundy -- the National Letter Carrier Association's National Humanitarian of the Year -- said he hasn't done anything different from what other letter carriers do on a daily basis.

Lundy and his wife, Carolyn, spent a year seeking help for a postal customer.

During his 20 years of carrying mail in High Point, Lundy recalled seeing the woman working in her yard fairly often. But the frequency dropped to once a month -- and then not at all.

Knowing she lived alone, Lundy began to check on her.

"Sometimes she would not get her mail, so the next day I'd knock on her door, and she'd peek out," he said.

One day, he had a certified letter for the woman. "When she opened the door, I saw there was a garbage bag she was kicking out of the way," he said. "She said she had spilled some trash and had to clean it up."

Lundy told his wife, who works at the High Point Police Department. A police officer checked on the woman, but she told him she was fine.

Two months later, Lundy delivered another certified letter. "She could get the door opened only wide enough for her to squeeze through," he said.

Looking over the woman's shoulder as she signed for the letter, Lundy saw garbage bags stacked 3 feet high. "At this point, I said, 'I need to do something.'"

The Lundys contacted various agencies, seeking help for the woman.

"Different agencies said they couldn't do anything because she's a homeowner. That didn't seem quite right to us," Carolyn Lundy said.

One agency told David Lundy that some people just like to live in a cluttered house. "It was not a cluttered house," he said.

"Every few days I'd knock on the door, and she'd come to the window. She always said she was OK."

One day, during a routine check, Lundy said the woman, who normally looked at him at eye level through the window, looked down at him from above, standing on trash bags.

The Lundys told the assistant police chief what they had seen. Officer Bob Morris was assigned to the case.

Carolyn Lundy said Morris asked a magistrate what was needed to get the woman help.

The magistrate suggested looking at utility records. No water, sewage or electricity were being used. Only the base price was being paid.

Armed with that information, Morris and a female officer got orders to remove the woman from her home. After coaxing her open the door, the officers had her taken to the hospital.

"She was not happy with him," Carolyn Lundy said of the woman and her encounter with Morris.

"Garbage bags lined all the rooms of the house," she said. "Your feet never touched the floor." The back porch had collapsed, and the roof was leaking.

This ordeal went on for a year -- from 2006 to 2007.

"You usually see something and think it'll be taken care of immediately," David Lundy said.

"We were very persistent," Carolyn Lundy said.

"It just continued to get worse. It was frustrating. I'd wake up at night and think, 'What can I do?'" David Lundy said.

The woman, now 76, is in an assisted-living center.

The Lundys have visited her, and the woman thanked her postman for checking on her. They don't think she knows he's the one who sought help for her.

David Lundy encourages people to keep an eye out for elderly neighbors who may not have any relatives nearby.

Contact E.A. Seagraves at 883-4422, Ext. 241.