Originally Posted by
Nigerian Expat Outlaw
This situation is far from new. When I was posted to Middle Wallop in 1985 the MQ we were allocated had two missing windows and the ancient lino tiles covering the entire ground floor were secured using 2" nails which protruded by around 1/4". When I asked the RQMS (a LSL WO2 who was biding his time to demob) what could be done I was told nothing, after all I was only there for a year. We had two children, one aged 2 and one aged 6 months, who we couldn't allow to play in case they injured themselves on the nails. The entire year was spent with plywood nailed over the missing window panes.
That period ignited an increasing desire to leave, consolidated by various degradations of service life and culminating in the Options For Change spending review.
NEO
Same patch, a couple of years later; woken one Saturday morning by four-year-old daughter who'd opened-up the connective tissue between thumb and index finger on exposed metalwork on the sink/draining-board and was fascinated by the now-visible ligaments. Response - a two-foot length of garden-hose, split lengthwise, glued over exposed sharp edge. The MQ at Wallop should have been condemned, but as you say, the standard retort was always "Suck it up, you'll be gone in less than 12 months."