The OMQs at Odiham were dreadful. I was posted there three times and lived in three different houses.
The worst of them had rotten skirting boards and was infested with wood lice. My toddler son used to eat the damned things! He used to completely deny it, even when he had wriggling remains in his mouth!
There was no felt under the roof tiles so from inside the loft you could see daylight all over the place. I was concerned about the safety of the water pipes up there when cold weather was forecast. Station routine orders were issued stating that occupants were responsible for ensuring that frost precautions were taken. I went up in the loft and saw that the mains riser to the header tank for the central heating had only old hessian wrapped around it. I went out and bought some really thick tubular foam insulation. I took off the old hessian, insulated all the pipes with the thick foam and then used the old hessian on top, so it was double insulated to a depth of an inch; all good for a severe winter. I then placed fibreglass insulation roll over the pipe run so rising heat from the house would keep the temperature above freezing.
A short time later I went away on a few weeks detachment. When I came back, just before Christmas, my wife mentioned that an MOD contractor had been in to check the insulation. I thought no more of it, knowing that it was all good. We then went away to relatives for Christmas Day and stayed overnight, having left the heating on. On our return, to our horror, the house was flooding from top to bottom, with water squirting out of the downstairs light switches, bathroom ceiling breached, kitchen ceiling bowing down, water coming downstairs like a waterfall.
I turned off the water, turned off the electrics, put wife and kids back in the car and went to the guardroom to report the problem. I was told a plumber was already on the station but I was about number twelve on the waiting list!
I got a torch and went up into the loft, at a loss to understand why a pipe had burst and which one had gone. I soon saw the reason. The MOD contractor had removed every scrap of the excellent insulation work I’d done about three weeks before and fitted the cheapest, nastiest foam cladding that money could buy. All the expensive stuff I’d bought was in an untidy heap. The fibreglass mat was thrown to one side. The mains riser had burst right where I’d taken great care to ensure it didn’t. I was bloody annoyed!
The plumber never turned up! I eventually had to repair the burst myself, using an olive type pipe connector, the day after Boxing day (our wedding anniversary), when I could get to a DIY store.
I had spent most of Boxing Day removing sodden loft insulation and putting it in bin bags. Three dozen or so were needed to clear it all out. I then had to wipe out the top of the ceilings from above......disgusting!
To rub even more salt in the wound, despite over a dozen MQs having suffered the same problem on the same day,on the same pipe, OC Admin decreed that the bursts were caused by the occupants themselves failing to take the correct frost precautions and that we were going to have to pay for the damage! To say there was an outcry was an understatement and that was thankfully rescinded. The barrack warden came around after the Christmas stand down to check the damage and we were told that the fitted carpets were going to be removed, taken away, dried then refitted. However, ours were so old they disintegrated as they were lifted; they were rotten. We were then told that they would replaced forthwith. The bad news was that there was a three month waiting list! We lived for weeks in a cold, damp house with newspaper on the floors. Using the stairs was dangerous because of the exposed “gripper rods” that had held the carpet. We were paying for the extra heating needed to dry the place out!
One of the reasons I took my option to leave at 38. I didn’t mind living in field conditions when required (and as a support helicopter pilot only to be expected on occasions), but I objected very strongly to my family being put in this situation and treated with total disdain.