The beautiful season of Christmas…

A new-fallen snow,
a brightly lit tree,
the joy in a child’s eyes,

Yet, none compare to the beauty
of our Savior’s grace,
his love for each of us.

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So recently, as we were sitting around watching Bershawn “Batman” Jackson run his 400 meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics, a bat came out of nowhere and was flying around in our living room. Really. An actual bat, with uncanny timing.

We live in the country and often see bats on summer evenings flying around our yard light, which is atop an electric utility pole set away from the house. Supposedly that’s kind of good because they eat mosquitos, right? But seeing bats high in the sky is very different than having one swooping around in the house, frantically trying to find its way out. Even my husband, who normally deals with anything, admitted to heebie jeebies. Eventually he was able to throw a blanket on top of the creepy critter and get it out of the house.

Needless to say, we want to know how and/or where a bat came in and should we be worrying about more? According to the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management, there are several clues that indicate bats living in your house:

1. Two or more encounters with bats flying around in your house within one calendar year
2. Piles of mouse-like fecal material in your attic or on the ground outside your house
3. Bats observed flying around your house from dusk to dark
4. A bat in the house during winter months

What to do if you suspect bats living in your house, besides putting up a for sale sign? The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management advises the following:

1. Locate the points of entry, commonly on roof edges, valleys, eaves, gables, dormers, vents and the chimney. Bats can squeeze through openings as small as 1/4 inch, depending on the specie.
2. Repair and seal these openings after dusk, when bats have left their roost. The best time for repairs is mid-August through mid-May, before the young are born and after they are weaned and able to fly.
3. Repellant and toxicants, according to the Center, have limited effects for various reasons.

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“There are many reasons, but they usually boil down to that never-ending social and political battle we know as development. Once the municipality agrees with FEMA’s definition of a flood plain, new building within that plain is subject to numerous restrictions. Not only do the buildings have to be constructed to withstand floods, but their location in relation to bodies of water faces restrictions and, in some instances, building can’t happen at all.

Communities and, particularly, the developers don’t like that. Not only do the flood plain rules limit structures like resorts and condos on valued lakefront and riverfront property, but they can put a crimp into a municipality’s grand design to grow and add more tax base.”

How sad.

Once again, it’s all about money and personal desires. Developers want their fortune, without respect to sensible building standards or the land on which they build. And owners want their dream home, whether it’s safe from overflowing waters or not.

Once again I ask: Who should pay for this?

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• Who Pays for Flooding?

Here in Wisconsin, Lake Delton has become our poster child of flooding. On June 9, torrential rains caused the 245-acre, man-made lake to tear away the county highway that served as its dike and literally drain itself within hours into the already flooded Wisconsin River. Most dramatic is the coverage of lakefront homes that were ripped from the shoreline and washed away into the rushing waters.

You sure have to feel for these homeowners.

But wait. When I watched the TV news coverage, my feelings became mixed. I saw Lake Delton homeowners bemoan the loss of their…yep, you got it…vacation homes. Don’t get me wrong. I realize multiple-homeowners work as hard for their real estate as the rest of us. But when thousands of Midwesterners elsewhere are struggling to save the only home they own from water, sewage and who-knows-what, it’s hard to feel pain for those crying for their vacation homes.

My feelings were furthered mixed when I read of Lake Delton’s insurance woes. It seems the community was not enrolled in the federal flood insurance program. Nor were homeowners covered in their private homeowner policies. Here’s where I start to ask questions: At what point must each of us, as individual citizens, assume responsibility for our own rights and privileges? And to what extent are we, as a society, responsible for the rights and privileges of individuals?

One of the homes was valued at $1 million. As the Tomah Journal put it, “Does the government owe them another $1 million lakefront home? A less expensive home with no lake frontage? Anything?”

Another couple spent their life’s savings to build a dream home along side the lake, all the while knowing they were uninsured. Is this wise? Are taxpayers responsible for their love of water, even to the point of foregoing common sense?

A phone call to my insurance agency answered some of these questions. My agent explained that most private insurance companies do not offer coverage against flooding. Rather, homeowners purchase insurance from the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which they obtain through their private insurer.

But there’s a catch.

Homeowners cannot receive coverage if their community is not enrolled in the NFIP program. Reasons for not enrolling are usually because the area is determined to be a low risk for flooding. In the case of Lake Delton, a lakeside village located between Dell Creek and the large Wisconsin River, its officials disputed a federal updated floodplain map and forfeited their eligibility in the program.

This happened seven years ago.

So, let’s think about it. Here’s a community, surrounded by water, whose elected officials chose not to comply with its only source of flood insurance. For seven years. Would it not be the responsibility of homeowners to question these decisions? To oust those oafs from office and elect officials who act more in their behalf? To get involved?

These are difficult questions, to be sure. What do you think?

As for me, I’ll stay living on my hill and enjoy the water from afar.

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• More on Flood Insurance

So today I’m following up on yesterday’s post regarding Wisconsin Management Company and their lease with Jordan Gonnering, the UW-Madison student who found his fiancé murdered in the apartment they shared. Previous news reports stated the property management company had not determined it would release Gonnering from the remaining 16 months of his lease.

Today Wisconsin Management Company did the right thing. According to owner Russ Endres, the company announced it has decided “to release all parties from any lease obligations.”

This was a caring and ethical thing to do, and for this I applaud Wisconsin Management Company.

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