The Middle Tennessee housing seas have calmed in recent quarters but a recent lawsuit reminds us there is still plenty of flotsam to clean up.

A unit of insurance giant Travelers last week filed suit against Clair Vanderschaaf and three others involved in the large Three Rivers subdivision development in Murfreesboro. The entity developing that project had planned to oversee the construction of 600 homes but filed bankruptcy in mid-2009 with fewer than 70 homes complete.

Travelers, which had issued a number of indemnity policies for Three Rivers and a Memphis-area development in 2004, says it has since paid more than $340,000 to Murfreesboro and other municipalities as well as attorneys and engineers because the bonds and performance obligations issued to help build the Vanderschaaf projects defaulted.

Letters sent in late March to the various entities and individuals seeking to collect on those costs have gone unanswered, leading Travelers to file its complaint.

Vanderschaaf, whose entities were dissolved in August of 2009, could not be reached for comment.