Hi

Does anyone on here live in forces married quarters?  If so, how do you find the service when it comes to reporting a fault and the way they deal with it?

We moved into a larger house at the beginning of 2004 and the cooker we had was TINY!  We struggled with it as even a bog standard baking tray would not fit in the oven - we had to tip it up slightly to get it in!  For a family of 6 (7 when my stepson stays which is every other weekend and all the holidays) it was really stupid!  Christmas dinner was a nightmare - cooking had to be done in stages!  :D

Our prayers were finally answered about a month ago when the damned oven door fell off and I thought YIPHEE, new cooker.  WELL after several phone calls chasing them, (it has now been 4 weeks without an oven) but we finally got our new one installed this morning and guess what ....................... its even smaller !!!!

Doesn't the DHE think before they issue these things??:rolleyes:  (sorry rant over with - just makes me mad!!)

As an ex army wife of ten years I can sympathise :D However, I remember the days when the Army ran the quarters and not civilians - you didn't have to wait for stuff to get done then :D

We have lived in MQ now for 6 years and it drives me round the bend.  I think we had it easy with our last out muster as our estate warden then was retiring so he didn't really care much as long as it looked reasonably ok. 

We have recently had a visit from the new one and all I can say is what a battle axe!!!  Not exactly the friendly type at all!!  I have heard from a couple of friends who moved recently that she definitely uses a white glove to check above the doors etc (I thought that trick went out with the ark!!)

I dread the day we move again if that is the case :D

We left married quarters in 1973, so I guess the system has changed since then! Yes, the white glove on top of the door frame and a damp cloth around the edges of a random pane of glass in any of the windows (a toothbrush was best for scrubbing those clean) was the norm. But if anything went wrong it was generally fixed the day after it was reported at the latest.

Hi, i worked for Mowlems at the repair centre, and took calls for repairs to married quarters. the only way you can get a nice big cooker is if your OH becomes an officer , dinner parties are more important than family size , dont you know :)

umm ..... officer quarters would be very nice indeed! :D :D  Why is it that they get everything?! :rolleyes: Can't complain about the house though, it is quite large (although the bathroom is a very tight squeeze - especially on a sunday when it is a production line getting the kids ready for school on the monday! )

When we first moved in to married quarters, we were given the line that the kitchens were sub-standard but the whole estate would be remodelled within 18 monthsl.  We have been on the estate for 6 years - still the same old cupboards that don't match, dilapidated boilers and of course cookers that are WAY TOO SMALL!!!

It doesn't help that we used to have to contact our estate officer to report all jobs and they arranged for a contractor to visit but now, they have even farmed this out so the contractor controls all timescales, work etc.  EO only deals with musters now!

Oh well, just the leaking radiator to chase again since 14 Jan!!:rolleyes:

They do pay more though, and believe me, few dinner parties are for the entertainment of the people giving them !.

Val

Hi hun, I am forced to live in married quarters (sorry that should say lives in forces married quarters!) And we moved Auguest last year frm chester to Hounslow(a getto) Absolute s**t hole we have 24 hours of planes as we live practualy at the end of heathrows runway. Constantly washing windows and the car cause of the bloody avation fule they dump over head, both babys ill constantly with the pollution.  No where safe really to walk the dog cause of the areas crime and when we moved in we was flea infested!!! Burnt carpets, had to wash some one elses s**t of the toilet door, broken guttering, could go on forever and DHE the cheeky SO & SO'S still charge us rent, but I must say the oven is a reasonable size, had a small one in chester ( oh how I loved that place, was heaven compared to here!) and reported a minor fault on the oven and got a brand new large oven with a grill that could be used as a small oven too!!! So they do have them, have you tried speaking to your familiys officer, or you could try contacting your local AFF rep, think if Im right you live in hapshire, thats london, so we should have the same AFF woman, she really nice and helpful.  Contact your hive rep or pm me and will pass her number on to you.  Know that the familys based down the road from me in feltham are in 4/5bed massionettes have all got the larger ovens as standard!!
Hope this helps and if you want a rant about how shit DHE/the army is you know where I am hun!
Colette.xx

My brother in law was an officer in the Navy for 25 years. My sister in law refused, point blank, to live in married quarters after a very brief spell in them while he was posted to Scotland during the Falklands War. From the awful tales above things obviously haven't improved much!

I have never really had any complaints about DHE really, dont know what the new guys will be like though. The house I am in at the mo is small compared to our last house but as we don't have kids it's all we are entitled to. Not bad size cooker though.
I know what you mean about the officers houses though, I have a few friends that are officers wifes who would actually prefer a smaller house as they pay through the nose for them and have no kids!

The forces don't actually MAKE their employees live in quarters. They, like everybody else, are free to get a mortgage and live elsewhere.

Ah, yes they can get a mortgage and live elsewhere...........but they don't get much of a choice !. They are 'posted' to a place and as you can imagine, there are some parts of the country where property prices are well out of reach for many (and no, salaries don't make allowance for this !).

Val

Not exactly practical though is it? Selling up and moving every time your husband (or wife) gets posted? :) In order to be able to move their soldiers around the country at short notice the army has to provide somewhere to live. The very least that people who are pretty much forced to use it (I'm not sure where you live but round here a Private/Corporal or Sergeants wage wouldn't get you a tin shack) should expect is clean, services, useable, reasonable sized houses - with a decent repair response system :) As I said - I can remember when the Army ran the Qtrs - and they were immaculate.

An average posting in the Navy (not sure on the other forces) is only 18 months (2 at a push) and yes we have been extremely lucky in that we have stayed here for 4 years but that was only because my OH had a medical problem so couldn't be drafted elsewhere, so to buy a house and move again within 2 years is not practical.  We moved to hampshire from Cornwall and both counties are famous for their high property prices.  Taking into account my OH salary and what most mortgage lenders will give (3.25 x salary), we could just about stretch to a 2 bed flat around here!  Not exactly big enough for a family of 6/7 :rolleyes:!

So unless my OH gets posted away from the south of the country (which is highly unlikely as the major naval ports are down south! :D) we are limited to married quarters unless of course I move away at least 200 miles north and OH travels home at weekends but again this isn't really practical with a young family and as well as paying for the house we would also have to pay for my OH's living/food costs on board!