I live in base housing.
There are many good things about base housing - which is why we chose it. It's nice for AirForceGuy to live close to work, although that kind of backfires when he is the one that ALWAYS gets called in. It's also nice for me to feel it is safe to let my kids go play at the park without having to hover over them like some sort of bloodhound. I like knowing that people have to follow rules - like turning the volume on their booming car down when they are driving down the street (at 20 miles per hour) at 1 am. I like that people's dogs have to be on the leash - although there is a certain person down the street from me that keeps letting their mini-poodle out to poop in my yard.
But base housing also definitely has its bad side.
We are currently less than 30 days from checking out of base housing for a move. As a part of that process, I had to call in approximately ten work orders that had to be on file in order to move without having to pay for the parts of the house that are falling down around our ears.
The first workman came to fix the handles on my doors and cabinets this morning. And I stayed up after midnight last night cleaning the house within an inch of its lead-painted life for fear that someone might think I live in utter filth.
I'm not sure what it is, but I have an un-healthy amount of fear when it comes to the housing people entering my quarters. I'm a relatively clean person - I wipie off my baseboards at least once a week. I wipe down all my cupboards every Friday morning while I'm making breakfast. I think I single-handedly put the children of anyone employed with the production of Magic Eraser through college, I go through so many of the things.
But just a hint that someone from housing has to come fix something and I go into full scrub mode. The Magic Erasers are lined up, the Oxi-Clean makes its appearance, and the Goo-Gone is purchased in bulk.
I think it might be because our housing is in such awful shape to begin with. There's only so much cleanliness can accomplish - eventually someone is going to notice that although there are no fingerprints on that wall, the paint is blistered and it smells like mold. And we're not even going to touch the bathroom grout in this humid environment. There is only so much twice weekly bouts with the Scrubbing Bubbles will do.
I have to wonder if I'm the only one with a fear of the Housing People that borders on the pathological. I spent the entire time my cabinet handles were being replaced today apologizing for the mismatched tiles on the floor!
I wonder if I can steel myself to just tell the next housing person that visits, "Look, these quarters suck." I doubt it.
