Is this sort of thing common?
 

It has been brought to my attention that a chap having to move out of quarters is being told he must get cleaners in before he marches out, although the next people to move in are the painters and decorators and new carpet fitters for a complete refurb.

The Ancient Mariner

Rossian,

Yes and no. Nothing has changed since your day in the sense that a MQ has to be spotless on vacation, even if the house will be demolished the next day. Using cleaners though is optional. An individual can still back out the kitchen door on hands and knees doing the job themselves if they wish to save money.

Rgd's.

Having just painted an entire house, at least 75% of a painter's job is preparation. A top quality clean is a reasonable ask.

Back in the 1980s, my Labrador pup ate through two kitchen doors in our quarter. Had to pay on march out even though a new kitchen was due to be fitted before the next tenants moved in. Did negotiate a good rate though!

The reason I asked...
 

......was because I'd thought that this mentality had died out ages ago.

When we marched out of our first quarter at Ballykelly the families officer complimented my wife on the cleanliness of the house and then charged us 1/3d for a crack at one of the screwholes on the base of a toilet bowl. I then found on the F2?? that almost every tenant since the quarter had first been occupied had been charged the same amount. Had anything ever been done to fix it? Silly question.

The Ancient Mariner

If you can't take a joke........

Damping a rag with 3-in-1 oil and wiping the surfaces of the cooker was always a good wheeze. It made the thing look almost brand new. Fortunately I never moved into a MQ where the previous occupant had discovered the same wheeze.

I'll be moving out of quarters shortly on retirement. The patch I'm on is half empty, and I expect my quarter will be unoccupied for months to come. In edition it needs a new kitchen and carpets.

On my pre march out visit I was told I didn't need to clean the carpets, for the reason stated above, but the house needed to be in a generally clean condition. I'm paying to have the place cleaned, as life is too short, and my wife and I don't want to do it ourselves in our 50s.

Yes, it will cost a couple of hundred - however, that represents approx. the monthly saving I have been making on the cost of my quarter vs what it would cost to rent commercially in comparison (in terms of rent plus council tax).

It's just part of the deal when dealing with quarters, and probably always will be. While they are rising, in my area quarter rates are still very cheap compared to commercial rentals. That's the one of the plus points of quarters, the march out process is one of the negative points.

Marching Out
 

Marching out of a hiring in Malta, usual preparation re spotless cooker etc, keen local civvy chap from families office spots a crack in the bidet (tres posh apartment). Eagerly reports same to the Families WO in charge. WO consults inventory, looks up and announces that there is no bidet on the inventory and therefore it does not exist, furthermore if bidet does not exist then neither does the crack ! I recalled doing him a favour at some stage in the tour -Lovely man !
I wonder if that spirit still exists?

Is this sort of thing common?
 

Why would anyone who was moving out of a privately rented house, a bought property or a family quarter not want to leave the property in an immaculate condition ? It is not hard to clean a house is it?

Cue favourite (and completely true) march out story.

Padstow...mid eighties.

Mate handed back qtr. Families Officer "good job on the cleaning blah blah".

Barrack Warden puzzled. "Carpet missing staff" Confused search for carpet and check of inventory. The light comes on...slowly.

Mate took over 3 bedroomed qtr and handed back 2 bedroomed qtr after demolishing upstairs wall to quote create a better living space unquote.

Damn near got away with it as well...but for that eagle eyed blanket stacker.

KOSB squaddie in a Berlin quarter in the early 70's knocked a hole in his bedroom wall so that he could watch telly in bed.... true! :\

Well, MQs (whatever) are generally 5h1t.

Moved in to 3 over the course of my job in the raf, none of which were particularly clean - or indeed worth a fraction of the rent being charged. All were certainly in a better condition when we moved out compared to when we moved in - nothing to do with DHE's efforts I might add.

On last march out duly paid the cash for a recommended cleaning biddy - life's too short to arse about with that sort of thing; when underling staff inspected property they proceeded to tread several clods of mud from the recently rained upon drive and pathway into the carpets.

Nuke the lot of 'em, houses and retard staff. They will not be missed.

Incident remembered with not much affection: Families officer at Aki who pulled out a rifle pull through with flannelette to check the internal condition of a mortice door lock. :\

Incident remembered with much affection: Meeting said officer a few years later for GDT/CCS. I volunteered to run the chamber session.

The march-out was the most odious experience of life in the military.

No example of anal extemism is discountable - under the sink plug, under the buttons on the matress, keyhole with a cotton-bud. Really hateful stuff.

On the plus side, most quarters are held together with toothpaste in the holes left from pictures, coated with a swipe of magnolia (for officers) paint.

regards

wets

A friend of mine recently moved into a hiring at an ISODET in Germany. He's entitled to a 4 bedroomed house, so two apartments were knocked together (they already had inter-connecting doors), but that gave him 6 bedrooms. The Landlord was instructed by the DIO Housing Officer to lock off two bedrooms...

Our previous hiring had a sauna in the basement which 'had' to be removed by the Landlord before we could move in. Suffice to say the landlord simply removed the fuse-links and then handed them back to me after the march in...when we moved out, the Housing officer counted all the holes in the woodwork (and most rooms were wood-panelled - no Magnolia was harmed in the building of this hiring). A pointless task as the 18th Century beams had loads of ancient worm holes...

We are returning to SFA shortly (yes, I know, a shock after a number of years of overseas Service) and have been told that 'light fittings and lampshades are not provided, as these are covered by the (much-reduced disturbance) allowance...' Can anyone confirm this?

DHE civvy officer refused to sign my clearance card on demob as I still needed the MQ to house my family for two months while my house was being built. Put me in a catch 22 as I then couldn't clear to start new job. Fortunately blue suiters in handbrake house knew he was a tool and sorted it. The same DHE officer then insisted on fortnightly inspections of the MQ and made my family feel like sqautters. It was the only time in my whole career where I truely felt hostility from the RAF.

When I met him for the march out day he assumed it would be a regular event of the over-the-top scrutinising that he was known for. Not so, I handed him the keys and off I f@cked!

Certainly it is Common.

We were back in the UK a couple of weeks ago and speaking with some civilian friends who were genuinely shocked when we explained that we had to clean the house to a high standard. Their response is 'Well, we'd leave it as we left; they can deduct cleaning costs from the bond'.

That may be so, but I would not like to leave my SFA in a mess, for my sucessor to clean up.

Outlaw pete.....
 

......is the organisation now not known as DIO? But the mentality seems to be the same.
What seems daft to me is that the person mentioned in the OP is leaving on medical discharge and can ill afford the cost of external cleaners when all the work is going to be undone anyway. It seems to be a very petty minded bureaucracy occupied with process rather than practicalities. The French used to have a phrase translated as "petty functionary" usually followed by a spit. It is clearly alive and well still in this organisation.

Back to my time at BKY - the families officer died and until a replacement could be found, it was decided that the Orderly Officer would do march-outs.
I was sponned to do a chap who lived round the corner from me - he and missus were on their way to Changi the next day.
They decided to have a "empty the drinks cabinet party" plus a barrel from the mess.
He decide that rather than clamp the beer pump to the kitchen table he'd fix it to the wall with two six inch nails! "A swift sharp pull will take it off the wall and two dabs of polyfilla completes the job" was his rationale.
During the party, discussion amongst the ladies turned to the general boringness of the decor (magnolia was mentioned). The lady of the house was an artist and got out her paints and a giraffe was painted up the stairwell, feet on the bottom landing and turning round two right angles up to top landing. Hurrah! they all cried, a great improvement.
0830 next morning I meet the team and in we go. The "swift sharp tug" ploy had gone adrift and about 4 sq.ft. of plaster came with it. It went downhill from there......
They did eventually get to the ferry to Liverpool but on the motorway lancashire's finest pulled over their NI registered rust bucket (no MOT there)
and said no way are you continuing with that heap. Got him card boxes from a supermarket and took them to the station. How they managed to check in all these boxes at Lyneham is lost in the mists of time?
So it's not always easy from the official's POV.

The Ancient Mariner

No matter what you do, it is impossible to clean a used frying pan to as-new standard.
Tip we were given at Kinloss (1970, our only time in quarters). Off to the auction rooms in Forres, where all the "condemned" quarters stuff was sold off. Buy a frying pan for next to nothing (there were a lot of them). March in, put the brand new issue pan in a cupboard for two years, and produce it unused for marching out.
The used pan was a lovely solid aluminium one - we went on using it for 30 odd years.

Cooking with an aluminium pan for 30 years? You must be well on your way to being sectioned by now!:}

30 years is a long time but a good quality frying pan, looked after well
will last for years. Why become part of throwaway society ?


oxenos
My family (parents) still has the one purchased in the UK in the 70's,
still used occasionally, good quality thick Aluminium with
high sides, something missing from even good one's today !

This is true, DIO no longer provide lampshades/lightfittings. But I'm not sure that DA is actually for covering the cost as such. They simply don't provide any more. And to be fair they've always been pretty sh1te anyway.

married quaters why?
 

My two abiding memories of living in married quarters left me determined never to do it again.

When two Canberra squadrons arrived at West Raynham we were all mystified why we kept getting moved arround into empty quarters. Eventually we twigged, cleaning them up.

Next winter we were warned to ensure our loft pipes did not freeze up as it was our responsibility and we would be charged for damage. Checked the loft, no insulation on pipes. Visited the family man he said yes they are all like that just leave the heating on and the loft hatch open.

Saw works and bricks man asked if any houses had insulation could we move, only the family off has had it done, funny that.

Moved out, never went back

I heard a tale where an Airman was moving out of his MQ. No surprises the DIO witch who did the march out moaned about the carpet and billed him for a new one.
The Airman thought this was a scam and as there was nothing wrong with the carpets, he reckoned they wouldnt be replaced and maybe cleaned again at the most.
So, the Airman payed his bill for a new carpet and took a stanley knife and cut a big square out of the middle of the carpet and took it with him.
The DIO witch said "Whoa wtf are you doing"? He explained that if he's paid for the carpet it now belongs to him.

I've also heard when people moved into a MQ. The first thing they did is remove the cooker, put it into storage in the garage or shed and replace it with their own cooker. Years later, when they come to marching out, they put the original unused cooker back. The DIO witch cant moan about the cooker being unclean then. It is literally as they found it.

I couldn't wait to move out of MQ's, they were a disgrace even in my time. Bought my first house when I was 24, best move I ever made.

The worst instance of the caring RAF that I heard of was a young girl who was around three months pregnant whos husband was posted away to Scotland. She did her best to clean up the house but sadly had a miscarriage on the bed, which of course left staining. The good old FO told her the matress was a disgrace when she marched out and she would be charged for a new one. He knew full well the circumstances. Poor girl broke down in tears.

One that still rankles with me is when my wife had cancer and had to have a hysterectomy (which luckily caught it). I asked for compassionate leave to look after my kids as it's not an operation that you recover from in 24 hours. Request denied. I then asked to use my normal leave. Request denied. When I asked my boss exactly what he expected me to do with my children his very words were 'If you can't cope, have them put into care.' What a nice man he was.

Talking of longevity, we still have the same tumble drier that we bought when we were married 35 years ago. And yes, it still works...

I remember my friends quarter at Church Crookham, they were new build with fitted carpets.... when i looked around i asked him why the carpet was about 2 foot away from a wall? he said that to be deemed a fitted carpet in RAF parlance it had the requirement to touch two walls only, so to save money there was this large gap with polished floor running around the other two..

Thing the trick with RAF mattresses is to circle it and initial it.... spilt a load of stuff over mine and as it had signed circles on it i simply added more............. and know it wasn't wee.

As to the poster who they wouldn't sign his clearance chit when he left, I used to sign most of mine myself when posted, and certainly when I left :E

If i'd lived at say Odiham for seven years then as long as accounts, accomodation, med section and the clothing stores was signed for, the rest was window dressing, even if i still had stuff signed out in the gym, they had a sig next to it so were happy as Larry, who was I to burst their bubble. just several coloured pens and an illegible scrawl.... job done.


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I seem to remember airmen's quarters had to have carpets that didn't touch the walls IE there was a foot or so of lino all round and officer's quarters had fitted carpets. Maybe urban myth, prepared to be told otherwise on that one. I know in the 80's my friend's quarter was recarpeted with fitted carpets so maybe it ended around then.

Edit: I used to sign all of my 'posted' chits too. Never took advantage, all things were returned to their proper abode, just couldn't be arsed trailing to some section I'd never been to so they could make sure I didn't have a sprogget wallaker signed out.

Some of the semi-detached, three bedroom, quarters at Bawtry were built so that a wall on the first floor corridor could be moved to create one four, and one two bedroom quarter. No one could explain how the electricity supply to the bedrooms was partitioned.

Told the other half about this thread and she reminded me if the time we were posted to a new unit. One child and another due imminently so I requested a 3 bed AMQ instead of a 2. Got refused by a female DHE officer on the grounds that my wife hadn't had baby no. 2 yet and in her words "anything could happen". I asked her to be specific and she was. Some people in some positions, especially civvys seemed to love wielding the small amount of power they have.

On an inspection of the Married patch at Odiham they found an extension cable running from a garage, across the fence then through a window into the singlies block and was plugged into a socket marked do not turn off, the other end had a married guys fridge and freezer plugged in to it.

"Cooking with an aluminium pan for 30 years? You must be well on your way to being sectioned by now"

That would explain a lot. I can't remember what it would explain, but it would. What were we talking about?

Possibly the same urban myth, but in the late 70s/early 80s ISK had a surplus of OMQs and a shortage of AMQs. A street on the edge of the OMQs was redesignated for use by airmen and yes, Barrack Stores allegedly went into every house and removed 12 inches of carpet all around each room on the grounds that "Airmen are not entitled to fitted carpets". :rolleyes:

And it would be early 90s when a colleague informed my boss that he was invited to a "Amontillado and Literature" evening at his quarter. He had just been promoted to MACR and his wife called the Sqn to say that Barrack Stores had just been round to drop off the additional items to which he was entitled: 6 sherry glasses and a bookcase. :hmm:

The RAF had lovely solid aluminium cooking pans.

Given the link between aluminium and alzheimers one wonders whether we are all in the boat for a class action???

the english quartermasters aren't the only insane ones.
I once helped my friend rossow move into a married quarter.

in the entire house there were just 3 power points.
get this. not one powerpoint was near the kitchen.

stupid? crazy? or just moronic? couldnt believe it.

Robson Report
 

AMQ carpets.
 

During the refurb of the on base quarters at Bruggen, early 80's, local contractors laid fitted carpets in all houses. They were then told to remove 6" all the way around the AMQ carpets, as only OMQs were allowed to be fully fitted. Baffled contractors complied but left offcuts for occupants use. :hmm:

A good friend of mine was posted back to the UK after a tour in Cyprus.

On his wage slip he noticed a payment for damages. On asking what it was for, he was told it was damages to his married quarter in Cyprus for £100,000. He was left stunned and confused. He challenged it and was told it was a correct payment and would have to continue.

6 months down the line, after much discussion, it came to light that he had been charged £10 for a light socket (which my mate knew about) but the person out in Cyprus had been a bit keen and accidentally miscalculated the going exchange rate somewhat.

One is reminded of when one once lived in MQs at Shawbury.

With the traditional end of FY underspend, it was duly announced that the "big old" quarters would be provided with plumbing for washing machines in the (enormous) downstairs loo. This was duly accommplished . . . and we then pointed out that there was no socket in said downsatirs loo.

"Ah" said the system, "you'll have to use the socket in the hall - extensions leads are available if necessary"

"But, but," we responded, "what if the downstairs loo is needed for its - ahem :O - primary duty while a wash is on. We cannot shut the door!".

"Ah" they replied, "good point - we will fix!"

And in due course a tradesman appeared - a carpenter - who cut a small triangle from the bottom of the door, so you could shut the door with the extension lead in place! How elegant a solution.....

:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

Whilst at St Athans in 76 tragedy struck, the new Airman's married quarters had an internal glass partition / door and some young girl running down stairs went straight through it resulting in some horrendous scarring..
If memory serves me correctly either safety glass hadn't been specified or the wrong glass installed, but a rapid programme of replacement was undertaken, we were all shocked at the time over it, poor blighter..


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