Bat murderer

I love bats. I love their stealthy flight at dusk, their wings that look like thin wet silk,their little sonar noises.


Many times I have been amazed at them, flying overhead like magic, in the golden hours. My first encounter with them was in Waukesha, some 20 years ago; I marvelled as they flew back and forth above me. Again, up north, on a wooded ithsmus between two lakes in the woods, they were thick in the trees as the stars came out; and again, one memorable time coming home late in my kayak as bats accompanied me, a thick low cloud. Last week, walking the dog through Glen Oaks Cemetary, we ducked, unnerved, as bats were low, flying, seemingly almost in our hair.


Once, someone who had two little brown bats hanging from the curtain on his back door called me, and I went; an expectant crowd gathered outside with the door open, and suddenly they both headed toward the sunset as we marvelled.


I have never once been afraid. The hair stood up on my arms, but I was not afraid.






Then last week Brain and I came home to find a bat inside a window, trapped by the braver of my two cats. I opened the screen. The bat flew outside into the night, unharmed. When I realized that the cat was overdue on her rabies shot, I made a vet appointment that turned into a report to the State Veterinarian, a lecture about why I should have killed the bat, and somehow involves a lot of hassle, including several home visits, the first of which is scheduled for tomorrow. That's fine, except that this morning there was another (different, larger) bat in the house.


It was flying in my bedroom when I was trying to get ready, and I shreiked a couple times (it really startled me!) and then closed the doors to the bedroom; I do have to say, it was very convenient that I found it in the only room in the house that I could close off. Sure that I was doing the right thing, I got the tennis racket, waited until it hung quietly on the wall above the door, and had Brain do the deed; I was saddened that I had to facilitate bat murder, but adrenaline and instruction-following won. It died quickly. I had been told that I was supposed to kill a bat in the house. So I did, again, what I thought was the right thing to do.


I called the DNR, certain that they would want me to deliver it anon for necropsy, and instead got a lecture about why bats are beneficial and that I should seal the hole through which they were entering. Duh. I do not need the DNR to tell me that. I do not need the DNR to tell me that I killed a bat for nothing. (Brain was just the hit man, having superior hand-eye coordination and strength; also, he is taller. I masterminded it, which is worse.) I do not need the DNR, either, to tell me that the State Vet was wrong, and that the DNR is superior; both are government entities that deal with such things.

...and we lived forever after, in a cottage by the sea

On Sunday Brain and I walked around Long Lake so that I could look at all the lakeside houses that I was coveting- the ostentatious mansions, the cottages with bleeding hearts and low stone walls, the beat-up old ones with outhouses just a bit too close to the water's edge. This sweet doomed angel, next to a cottage for sale, is about to be torn down to clear the view for a planned new house. (We enjoy our vacations thoroughly.)

You can see the campground from this spot. When we are camping, I always find cottages to think I want, but I realized that if I actually had one, I wouldn't be there; I would be back in Milwaukee, worrying about the place. Plus, I enjoy the allure of the new. That's the thing about camping: you can put your tent anywhere and explore all the crazy little places you never knew existed.

Mission complete! Last of the Lustron photos.

Here are the rest of the fifteen extant (according to the Lustron Registry) Lustron houses in Milwaukee, in the order in which I photographed them. Shout out to the Wauwatosa branch of the Milwaukee Public Library for helping me out.

Lustron House at 403 N. 91st Street.

Lustron at 2971 N. 91st Street. Small porch area is enclosed.



Lustron at 3474 N. 93rd St. On the corner. Sided pale blue.




3014 N. 83rd. Screen porch added. Garage is as seen below. Appears to be covered with some sort of stucco and then painted a similar shade of blue.

The garage: the ghosts of the square tiles are visible.

3205 N. 82nd, on the corner.

More lustron photos

As promised, here is another group of Lustron photos. These are from the north side of Milwaukee. I hope the Lustron preservationists do not get too upset. Some changes have been made to the exteriors.

Above, Lustron House at 3535 W. Marion. The Lustron Registry incorrectly lists it as 4276 N. 36th Street, which is the correct coordinates (approximately) but the wrong number. The house is now sided.

3825 W. Marion, above. Yellow. Incorrectly listed in the registry as blue-green.

Above- 4433 N. Sherman. Tan.

5520 W. Philip, above - listed in the Lustron registry as simply "55th & Phillip (sic) Place." It is well kept and neat.


5861 N. 74th Street, above. Please don't cry. It looks nice. The bones underneath are Lustron with a whole new skin. Even the decorative zig-zag accent has been changed to a simple rectangular support.

Many, many thanks to Mike for getting out in the city with me to get these shots!

Sustainability and street cred

This is the house that DH and I bought together when we got married in 1998, at the corner of Palmer and Center streets in sort-of-but-not-quite Brewer's Hill and definitely-not-but-let's-pretend Riverwest. We were the only white people around for blocks and blocks. We paid $35,000 for it and the taxes were just over $250 per year. It was very economically sustainable and I was able to walk to work if I wasn't working the night shift, and if I had Comet (the Doberman/pit bull mix) with me I could walk wherever else I felt like, too. We had a huge yard that created a buffer between our house and the dogfighting and prostitutes next door. The house itself was huge and it had an oil furnace- heating was much cheaper then. I don't think we would be able to afford to heat a place that big now! It was 2434 square feet of wonderful house that I felt trapped in. We lived there for just over two years before moving to where we live now.

I just wanted to give a little background before I post a few other things about the real Milwaukee that I don't see elsewhere on the blogosphere.

More Lustron photos

I promised more photos of the Milwaukee Lustron houses and here are a couple of them- two right next to each other on North 27th Street, just north of Hampton.

Lustron House at 4964 N. 27th StreetLustron House at 4956 N. 27th Street
This tan one has the matching garage.

One of the reasons I love these so much (besides their having been such a mystery to me for so long) is their whole space-age aesthetic, as well as their diminutive size.

I thought this would be a good time to put up a photo of the sculpture in front of the Atkinson Library, 1960 W. Atkinson Ave. I don't know anything about it. It would look good in front of a Lustron house though. That branch opened in 1961. The Lustron Company built its homes in the late 1940's, so they are not of the same time period, but somehow they have a similar anachronistic appeal for me.

Lustron houses

Blue Lustron House at 3802 W Capitol Drive, Milwaukee.

One of my longtime fascinations is Lustron houses. I didn't know until four years ago that they have a name; I used to call them Tile Houses. I happened to grow up near a rich cluster of Lustrons.- all blue-green, except for one which was tan. I would go out on my bike and try to find more, and had a route of sorts to go and visit them. This was of course pre-internet- now all of their addresses are on the online Lustron Registry. Apparently other people appreciate them too, since they also have their own Preservation Association. Lustron at 2746 N 82nd Street

In a 2005 article from Chicago's New City newspaper, Douglas Knerr (author of Suburban Steel: The Magnificent Failure of the Lustron Corporation) said that he first became interested in the Lustron houses when his cousin married a boy who had grown up in a Lustron house in Ohio, affording Knerr the opportunity to tour the inside. Knerr "instantly noticed that his cousin's new family had no use for nails or for a hammer. They hung all their photos and artwork directly to their home's walls using magnets. And maintenance? That was minimal. Nothing chipped or faded." But Knerr saw something larger: "These homes are an important part of our history. They reflect an effort by the government to help provide affordable houseing on a mass scale, something that we are still wrestling with today."

Last year, a DVD was released about the sad collapse of the visionary Lustron company (it was a conspiracy, for you believers). I recently was told by a reliable source that my mom reads all of my blog posts, and since my birthday is coming up soon perhaps she will come up with a great gift idea for me.Lustron at 2777 N. 82nd Street; as you can see, it has aluminum siding now.

I'm going to try to photograph all of the other Milwaukee Lustrons in the near future.