Why I'm Glad to Leave Military Housing

You know you want to watch the drama that is this video. And now I can safely post it because I live a dozen states away from the psycho next door!

Military House = Convict Housing?

No offense to any ex-cons who are trying to turn their lives around, but I don't want you in my military. I'm sorry, but, if a teacher has to have a superb background in order to be around children, why can a criminal join the military and move into housing with hundreds of military children? Heck, how can you even be trusted to defend and serve as required if you couldn't do it in the day-to-day life?

Am I the only one that thinks this way? I mean, the military is at capacity and trying to get rid of soldiers to lower their budget, so why aren't the standards for becoming a soldier drastically rising as a result?

The Military Would Be Awesome Without the Wives...

Okay, I am tired and more than fed up with seeing Enlisted military spouses going around and acting like trash! I don't care who you are, if you're old enough to get married, you're old enough to at least pretend like you have some sense in your head.

Now, I recorded this when I was very angry, so there is an extreme amount of profanity, but I just can't take these little girls who are absolute idiots making military life intolerable!

Any Renters?

My friend said that I should upload a video like this to my blog/vlog because I've had a really long run of getting 100% of my security deposits back over the years from video recording/uploading my houses. The only time I didn't get a full return was on the first apartment I rented, where the landlord nickel and dimed me for everything (even light bulb replacement for WORKING light bulbs!). Damages already in the house became my fault because I didn't know to document them and the landlord didn't tell me to, suddenly my professional carpet cleaning wasn't good enough so I had to pay for someone else to do it again, and a lot of other things. I didn't have enough proof to take it to court, because I trusted the landlord.

What I learned from that was that you never trust someone trying to make money off of you. So, ever since then, I have taken a video of all of the house before I unloaded the moving truck, posted the video on YouTube within a few days of moving in, and then did the same thing after I had all the boxes on a moving truck a year or so later. Ever since doing that, I have not lost one penny to landlords!

So, this is an extremely boring video, but if you are renting, it is a good example to have. I believe I even cut this video short and didn't include the outside or a few of the areas in the house because it was already running long. Another tip too - this video was done in a hurry as a sample, so it's not in HD. If you can upload an HD video, that is even better for you!

This is really important for college students to do as well, because the worst landlords I ever experienced were ones who primarily rented to college kids! There are many who will try to bully, intimidate, and push you around because they expect you not to know the laws (or even tell you that their "lawyer" says this or that, when they are making it all up as they go along). In their defense though, these landlords also get so many irresponsible kids renting that they treat you all like morons that will wreck their property or stop paying the rent. My last landlord like that went so far as to tell us that we couldn't break our lease with a military PCS, and that we were trying to con him. He even tried to call the recruiter's office to say that we trashed his house when this landlord had never once even showed up to mow the lawn as our lease said he would!

Also please note that the house in this video is NOT military housing. This is the house we left military housing for (foolishly left in hindsight, as we couldn't see the house we're in now before we moved in, and it is a cracker box, filthy, broken down nightmare!). I don't want to mislead anyone, and if you are military, I would strongly recommend to try renting off base if it's a realistic option for you. They charge us a lot of money here to live in a slum-like neighborhood.

Wishful Thinking

Well today I've been doing something that I do a lot, which is go online and look at houses for rent and sale. I live in military housing right now, and I hate it. The property management is terrible, we're packing in like rats, there's bugs in everything, and large, loose dogs ready to attack at every corner. Now when I mention bugs, I mean serious bug problems, no matter how much you spray or complain to management. I have never had a roach in my home in my life before moving onto post, and now I have to put a net over my bed so that I can sleep without worrying about one crawling into my mouth! *GAG* Needless to say, it's not the picture of standard and regulations that I expected out of military housing - it's, without a doubt, the worst place I have ever lived in my decade of renting.

As a result, I'm often searching online looking at my dream homes, or at least places to rent that can't be any worse than where I live now. I know I can't really up and leave, but I can still feel pro-active by making an escape route (just in case!). So today, while I'm day dreaming about living near my new university, I found this apartment listing http://www.vacancy.com/california/san-francisco-apartments/the-lofts-at-one-powell/photos/

Va-va-voom! All I can say is wow, this place looks incredible! I live in a three bedroom unit now, and it's smaller than the two bedroom at this place. And I love the way it looks, the building itself reminds me of a mix between New York City and Rome. It has an interesting geometric shape too that you don't see around here.

I love the photo with the giant arch window too! I've never been to San Francisco and it looks like the most gorgeous city in the world from the photos in the listing. Their kitchen photo is also twice as big as my own kitchen now, haha. And I wish I had the 15' ceilings now!

I may be biased though, because I am obsessed with California. Beautiful area, loads of things to do, extreme diversity, and wonderful weather. So what if the state itself is losing people left and right because it's going bankrupt? lol

I know I'll probably never get to live there, but it's still fun to dream. Am I the only one that looks at places online to fantasize about? I'm a big fan of geography and architecture, so I guess fantasy housing is kind of my hobby these days. A little escapism is good for us I suppose. :)