Base housing... Yay or nay?
July 9, 2009 - 10:01
As a military wife, I lived in California and in Japan. In California, it was San Diego and Port Hueneme. I lived off base in both areas. Our military stipend covered small appartments, though modest it was enough for us to live near the beach, which is what I wanted. Plus, hubby liked being away from the base when he was done working. I visited military housing when it was offered to us, but I was never convinced enough to give up our appartment by the beach. It wasn't until we got to Japan that I finally gave in. Loved Japan and our appartment off base was great, but I could not deal with the frigid temperatures in winter and the roaches and the heat in the summer. What about you? Do you prefer base housing or living off base, and why?
Recent comments
What do you think?
I prefer to live on base, ONLY if I know that my husband is going to be away alot. It's nice to have a daily surrounding reminding me that I'm not the only spouse going through deployments or long-term TDY's. Also, it's good to know that on-post I have a system of people to help me, like if the water heater breaks! As well as knowing I have the MP's to call if I need them. We lived in military housing in Hawaii and are now on base in Italy. At Ft. Bragg we lived off post, and owned a home -- and at Ft. Riley, too. It was wonderful to have a house with a big yard for our dog, and to have neighbors that were respectful of the neighborhood. My two biggest complaints about being in military housing are: it seems that often times people forget how "on top of eachother" we are here -- like the loud crowd in the parking lot right now at 9 pm!! Plus, alot of people don't seem respectful of the neighborhood or their neighbors -- kids writing on buildings, trash everywhere, screaming kids (and adults!) in the halls, loud music in the parking lots, etc. It is almost like being in a bad college dorm again. Only in a forgein country do I suggest living on-post, or if your spouse knows there will be lots of TDY's and/or deployment!
Off base in the states, On base over seas. For many of the above mentioned reasons. There is NO on base housing where we live in Aviano, Italy. There is built to lease which is sort of offbase on base housing...I chose to avoid that because I felt like it painted a big bulls eye on my family and there is no fence or security...hey look... ALL of the Americans live here! So I live discretly on the economy 5 km from base.
We are PCSing to Germany in a few monthes and I have NO idea where we are going to live. I wish someone could tell me more about the housing there besides the renovation work that is going on still/??? who knows...
thats my two euro cents.
When we were at Laughlin in Texas we had a house off base and we loved having our privacy, the houses on base were small and we loved having all that space and big backyard. However we PCS'd to England. My husband felt that it would be safer living on base, him been during 9/11, he just felt it would be safer since know he had children and a wife. We were lucky we got on base housing and it happens to be a brand new house here at Lakenheath. It is so big and spacious with a nice back yard. So for now it's on base. Things may change if we go back to the states but overseas it will base housing.
we have lived on base at our last 2 bases and off post in Lakenheath when hubby was still in the sir force.we had a 3 bedroom 2 storey house at Cannon and we live in a 2 bed apartment here at Baumholder.I prefer on post.I prefer the security and as I dont drive it makes it easier for me to walk places.Plus the town is quite literally a short walk away.It saves us petrol.I like saving money on rent and so forth..i hate sharing a stairwell with neighbours.Fortunately the people in my stairwell are fantastic and I'm great friends with them.Most of our stuff is 110v and of course us europeans use 220v....therefore if living off post we would have to buy transformers.They arent provided for you in the army and those things arent cheap.I think you get a better sense of community living with other military people.Others might not think so but I definately prefer it and I would live on post in america too...
I currently reside in Wiesbaden Germany........there is renovations being done in the housing areas here (on post living). I live off base because I heard that the housing was quite small. I hear more poeple complaining about it.....but, German apartments aren't too much bigger themselves unless you're specifically looking for a certain size! My husband and I lucked out on ours! However, it can get a little lonely when you don't have neighbors to communicate with!
We live in Vilseck I opted for on post housing because I'm not fluent in German by any means and I wanted a network our housing here is decent, they offer alot off post also the housing here is kind of weird there are houing areas outside the gates that are considered "post housing", but there is also alot of housing inside the gates (that's where we are) we got 2 options when we got here to look at. Our kitchens are supposed to be re done at some point not sure when. After a coat of paint I actually really like my house now. There are some things that I would prefer in a house living off post, mostly architecture, but the pros out way the cons.
We lived off post int the staates and sometimes it really depends on the location. It wasn't bad, but i would prefer that than on post housing. As for over seas... i love where i live. We live off post in the economy. It's great. And our landlord live next door. We got really lucy, #1 she speaks very good english,#2 this is a brand new house, #3we have a chance to interact with the people. So i just think we got lucky... And besides the post that we're at, it's small... So things get said...