Monday, January 12, 2015

What Happens When You Live In Military Base Housing

We've always lived on base housing. I know some people don't like it, but we do. Well, I do. My husband is getting to the point where he'd prefer to live off base. We'll see. For now, we live on base, and here are the things I've noticed that can happen when you do.








1. Airplanes will wake you up at night or in the morning.

I've been woken up at 11 PM. I've also been woken up at 4 AM. I was not pleased, but they have to get their flying in. Once I thought we were having an earthquake and jumped out of bed. Then I realized, no, that's a jet.


2. You'll hear people talking from the sky.

There are intercom systems on base that are used for warnings. Such as when we get a tornado, Lindsay Lohan breaking on base, or letting us know when exercises are being done. Sometimes the gates will pretend as though they had a gate runner so they can be prepared if it really happens. So a person will go, "Exercise, exercise, exercise," on the intercom. It can be startling if this happens before you've had caffeine. I once heard a man speaking overhead and was like, "God?"


3. You won't always be able to leave.

As I mentioned above, the base does exercises. Sometimes this means a gate will be shut down so they can better do an exercise. Other times the gates are shut down because there was a gate runner or because they are looking for someone so they have to look in each car to ensure you aren't the person. Once the gate was shut down due to a missing child. The longest I've had to wait is 40 minutes. Yes, it can be annoying, but I remember that people are only trying to do their jobs to keep us safe.


4. You'll be super close to your neighbor so be nice to them.



We basically share a driveway. If we fought, it would be terribly awkward if we were both going to our vehicles.


5. You might not have enough space if you are a packrat.


I wish we had more room. If Tom makes E-7, we can move into bigger enlisted housing with a DOUBLE GARAGE. Think of all the space! It's my fault though. I need to go through things. I just feel like I need my notebooks from college. I don't know why.


6. You have to keep your garden looking nice.



The base housing we had in England did not have a garden. I liked this. But the one in Wyoming did. I was written up many times for weeds. The housing guy even approached me when I got back from Target once. "It's the weeds. Again," he sighed, handing me my citation. Yes, you can get in trouble if the outside of your house looks frightening. If you get so many, your husband can get in trouble. I got enough to get my husband in trouble but he was in Korea for a year, so they took pity on me. I hate, hate, hate, that I have to take care of plants that I don't even like. And I didn't even put the plants that are pictured in! They might be dead now. Oops. But no citations here yet!

31 comments:

  1. Growing up we lived in base housing. My dad was enlisted so we never had the big houses:) I know that the year my dad spent in Korea my mom really liked being on base.

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  2. Sounds pretty cool actually. I laughed when you said "God?" haha hearing voices from above would defo freak me out!

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  3. We haven't lived on base for some of these very reasons, haha. I do always wonder what it would be like to be close to neighbors, though - I've never experienced that.

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  4. Wow. Sounds amazing. It is like a community with some annoy canes. At the end of the day, you are all in the same situation and have who to turn to.
    Thanks for sharing. Very insightful.

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  5. We lived on post in Germany but it seems like here at Ft. Campbell there are more strict about things. We live off post here.

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  6. I have only lived in base housing once (in Hawaii) but I loved it. I loved that we had built in friends/drinking buddies surrounding is!

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  7. You should just rip out all the plants as soon as you get there!

    We share a driveway with people. Philadelphia is a city made up largely of row homes.

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  8. I never thought about what base housing must be like. I guess there must be advantages to it also. In some ways I wouldn't mind, but I'd run out of room pretty quickly I bet!

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  9. ha! I laughed about the "God" part.
    I have only really thought about this because of your posts. And I have a friend who lives on base in Virginia and she's pregnant with her third kid and her husband has the flu and I wonder how on earth she'd take care of plants in that state?
    I live in the woods with no neighbors, no talking men in the sky, and no plant citations.
    But we all do what we can to be happy and have happy homes!

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  10. I have never lived in Military housing, but I imagine it could have it's perks. I would be buying flowers all the time to keep my garden looking nice. I would have to because I haven't master the art of gardening yet.

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  11. Love this post! I have never heard of being written up for having weeds. That is too funny! :)

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  12. Haha hearing voice from above would freak me out! I'd probably be like "God?" too hahaha.
    Where abouts in England did you live? :)
    Loved this post!

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  13. The rules about keeping your yard nice would be so hard for me. I could never even live in a place with a homeowner's association because of that. haha! Both Angel and I simply don't care/don't even see weeds or unkempt yards. It's a good thing we moved from the country (no neighbors, no one cares) to an apartment (no yard, no plants!)

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  14. Wait, so its nothing like the show Army wives? NO meeting with tears and hugs?

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  15. hahaha! I was laughing while reading each one of these! I've experienced all except the gardens... thankfully our base is pretty relaxed when it comes to keep your lawn/flowerbeds in perfect condition. The creepiest thing is hearing "exercise, exercise, exercise..." I assume each recording is different at each base, so whoever recorded ours sounds like the creepiest person in the world!

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  16. Haha. Live this! We lived in a town house in Maryland and our neighbors were rude! It was seriously awful!

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  17. This was very interesting! The most I know about living on base is watching Army Wives and I have no idea how realistic that was (probably not at all!). Thanks for sharing!!

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  18. I have all my old crap from college too. Sadly, I have a two car garage and there still isn't enough room!

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  19. Oh the "Exercise, Exercise, Exercise." The base I live at tests is system every single week. For the first few weeks my dogs just couldn't understand the voices in the air, the planes in the air, the dogs in the next yard, and why it wasn't acceptable to bark at all of these things. Our neighbors are nonexistent basically... except for the stomp dances (nothing else they could possibly be doing) periodically throughout the day.

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  20. I think I could manage all the things except the gardening, I'm a terrible gardener!

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  21. I haven't lived in military housing in many years and the rules are different here, but I think I'd lose my mind if someone expected me to look after a garden. I can't keep any plant alive. Ever. For any reason and no matter how many citations I might be given :P

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  22. We live about 5 miles from base, but I still deal with number one and number two. The big giant voice always confuses me when I hear it, and sometimes the planes fly so darn low I'm certain they're going to land on our house!

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  23. Military housing sounds a lot like living in a housing development near an airport. Of course, we don't have God talking to us as much as you do. :)

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  24. Omg. You too? I won't throw away my college notebooks. I Feel like I need them! It's the Virgo in me.

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  25. Oh, so true. Ha. This is our first time living in base housing. We actually really like it so far. Our space is limited, but we like to think of it as cozy :)

    Lauren

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  26. Citations for weeds? I would be thrown off base. We share a driveway with our neighbors, and we don't like them. It's not fun.

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  27. I've never lived on base but whenever I go to Fallon to visit my brother, we get on his bike and take a ride out to the Naval air base out there. I also went to Ft. Irwin to visit a friend on my way to Vegas and yeah...I could NOT live with the constant wind...that would drive me nuts!

    Yeah, the weeds thing sounds like something that would happen to me, haha!

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  28. I remember you posting about the plants and the citations. So stupid! I would definitely kill the plants without intention. Sad. I hope you get that double garage!!!!

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  29. The garden in front of our house was GORGEOUS when we moved here. Now? Not so much. I hate when the neighbor you share a wall with smokes and you can smell it in your house. But I don't complain because I'm sure they want to kill themselves because of my noisy kids.
    The intercom system on this base is called the 'Giant Voice' and it also sings to us sometimes. It's terrifying.

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  30. I do not know if this UFO thing is real or not but I got to learn lot of new information from the us military bases website. They are also providing the location of their bases.

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