# Military families living in mould-infested homes: Ombudsman



## klacquement (20 Apr 2012)

In a strange coincidence of timing, I'm going through the same thing right now.



> OTTAWA - Facing cries for help from families of Canadian soldiers, military ombudsman Pierre Daigle said he is stepping in to help.
> 
> QMI Agency has learned Daigle has launched a top-to- bottom review of Department of National Defence policies that affect soldiers' family life.
> 
> ...



More at the article


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## PMedMoe (20 Apr 2012)

> a soldier's wife who had seven kids





No wonder they can't afford to live outside of PMQs.


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## PuckChaser (20 Apr 2012)

PMQs are "fair" market value now, they aren't a cheap housing alternative now.


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## PMedMoe (20 Apr 2012)

PuckChaser said:
			
		

> PMQs are "fair" market value now, they aren't a cheap housing alternative now.



You're right, but most people will say they can't afford the downpayment for a house.  Yet they have all the "toys".


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## Delaney1986 (20 Apr 2012)

They are pretty cheap in Oromocto. It's the bloody natural gas that kills us! Thank goodness for equalized billing!


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## fraserdw (20 Apr 2012)

Someone should have been court-martialed of the natural gas forced on folks in the Qs in Gagetown!  What horrible thing to force on people you are charged with looking after!


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## SeaKingTacco (20 Apr 2012)

Fraserdw-

I lived in the RHUs in Gagetown when they had oil furnaces.  Believe me, that was no bargain.  And there was the added risk of oil tank ruptures or the oil company flooding basements by over filling tanks (which seemed to happen at least once per year).

The switch to natural gas at Gagetown was very welcome, when it happened.


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## Fishbone Jones (20 Apr 2012)

fraserdw said:
			
		

> Someone should have been court-martialed of the natural gas forced on folks in the Qs in Gagetown!  What horrible thing to force on people you are charged with looking after!



Speak english please.


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## chriscalow (20 Apr 2012)

Hope this has some influence soon. I'm going through a fight with CFHA in Pet right now for this. Wife and son already left.


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## klacquement (20 Apr 2012)

Gumby said:
			
		

> Hope this has some influence soon. I'm going through a fight with CFHA in Pet right now for this. Wife and son already left.



So far this week, I've spent 2 days in a hotel and 3 in an emergency PMQ, with the emergency Q extended now until Monday (at least).  Last month I spent a week in the emergency house, while they did a half-assed job of half the job.


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## exabedtech (20 Apr 2012)

Back in the day when I lived on Antwerp at Pet I recall CE coming to repair a broken front door jamb by inserting a length of hockey stick and securing it with 3" screws that went right through the glass side light beside the door.  They told me "at least the door jamb is fixed!" and left.  Never did fix that side light.
As bad as CE was, contracting has been no better and CFHA has no one to blame but themselves.  These days i'm on the other side of the fence and actually considered bidding for a PMQ maintenance contract until I read it.  What a joke!  Only a moron or a criminal would bid on something like that.
I get the basic premise of having an SOA with a contractor, but whoever writes these things clearly has no idea how the real world functions.  If they'd simply hire a company to do work and then inspect that work to determine whether they'd received fair value, they would do much better.  If they get good service and good work, call him back the next time otherwise call someone else.  SOA forces them to keep calling the same jackass that screwed them over the last time.

Just my opinion, but it seems that the entire process DND/PWGSC uses to deal with contractors strongly encourages deceit.  Fixing the system would really be as easy as firing the 10-20 staff they use to manage their crappy maintenance and hire ONE competent maintenance supervisor who knows how to use a phone and 2 or 3 contract inspectors who are red-seal tradesmen to supervise the work.  Give the contracts department a budget and let them decide for themselves how best to manage things.  The current system handcuffs everyone into using a guy who will give you an unrealistic hourly and call out charge only to blatantly lie about how many hours a project took.

Who is really the better deal?  The honest guy who tells you his rate is $80 an hour and does the job in 2 hours and bills you $160.00 or the guy who tells you his rate is $40 an hour (to get the SOA for the year) and then bills you 8 hours for the same thing?  
CFHA and DND in general are simply getting exactly what they asked for.... dishonest contractors.


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## TN2IC (20 Apr 2012)

My kids were always sick when we live in our amazing PMQ. After a tour, I went out and bought my own home. Kids seem to be fine now. Go figure.


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## birdgunnnersrule (20 Apr 2012)

PMQs have many issues, however, they serve a very important purpose for folks that may not, for various reasons, want to buy or live away from the base.  My wife finds it very interesting since CFHA told us the reason we had mould at one PMQ was because we were not cleaning properly.  It was not related to the poor ventilation, old windows, or lack of insulation.  Bleach and any home made remedy we could find was our friend.


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## Jarnhamar (21 Apr 2012)

CFHA are a bunch of morons.

It's criminal that they are still in business wheeling and dealing.

Great the Ombudsman recognized that something screwy is going on-it's what 20 or 30 years late?


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## PuckChaser (21 Apr 2012)

birdgunnnersrule said:
			
		

> My wife finds it very interesting since CFHA told us the reason we had mould at one PMQ was because we were not cleaning properly.  It was not related to the poor ventilation, old windows, or lack of insulation.  Bleach and any home made remedy we could find was our friend.



That's their fallback response, because quite frankly some of people's issues are caused by just that. But they use it before looking at the house.

I think the problem with CFHA is that some of the homes are junk when people move in, so they don't care about maintaining them while they are there because CFHA didn't care enough to fix them before they moved in. Its a vicious cycle, and I've seen it with the student housing at Queen's. Crap house = inconsiderate tenants, which makes the house crappier, etc etc. The nicer student housing that was just built never has garbage around it or wild house parties.


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## klacquement (21 Apr 2012)

birdgunnnersrule said:
			
		

> PMQs have many issues, however, they serve a very important purpose for folks that may not, for various reasons, want to buy or live away from the base.  My wife finds it very interesting since CFHA told us the reason we had mould at one PMQ was because we were not cleaning properly.  It was not related to the poor ventilation, old windows, or lack of insulation.  Bleach and any home made remedy we could find was our friend.



They tried that with us.  Fortunately, we were able to get someone in, who noticed that the same spot in the bottom corner of the cupboard kept growing mold.  Then we convinced him cut open the wall.  The growth behind that was definitely beyond our household cleaning scope.


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## The Bread Guy (21 Apr 2012)

Two new bits of info to add to the discussion:

1)  A _Toronto Star_ story about how some government buildings (including PMQ's) are in bad shape - apparently (and I stand to be corrected) drawn from this inventory*** - here's what the article has to say about DND properties:


> Nearly 5,000 federal buildings and homes are in serious disrepair, a national database shows.
> 
> (....)
> 
> ...


 and

2)  The results of a quick MERX search of at least _some_**** of the tendered work done on PMQ's since 2005 (22 page PDF)

*** - *Caveat*:  I couldn't make the search parameters match the story's almost 5K "in serious disrepair", even when searching for "unknown", "poor" and "critical" properties - and that's assuming worst case for the "unknowns".
**** - I did a quick search of "married quarters" in the text of the MERX postings.


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## mad dog 2020 (21 Apr 2012)

Funny Borden is mentioned.  I was in the Q's there in the early 90's and Between base housing and CE it was a sad joke on their concern for fiscal responsibility. 
My eventual Q, sat vacant for at least 6 weeks and they paid for me and my family to stay in a hotel for 73 days.  
CE was not a focus driven organization, but the housing office was just plain corrupt.
There was a $250 dollar claim for cleaning your Q when you left andnyou could do it yourself (multiple times, before it passed inspection or just give up) or pay housing to make the arrangements.
Odd, the standard they demanded of you was unrealistic considering while the Q was empty CE would come in and do a complete inspection and repairs before the next resident.  In many cases the place appeared to never being cleaned and where did the $250 go you gave housing.  
Some jobs for repair were unrealistic for example pay 2 guys to come pull a bedroom door, take it back to the shop, and refinish it and then 2 more guys to return and reinstall it or now adays just buy a new one from Home depot and remove and replace in one shot.  Major labour savings.
Always wondered who oversees the contractors as did no one notice when the South side Q's were built backwards.
I still go to Borden and see how many Q's have been removed.  I remember due to the fact we didn't have basements everyone had at least one shed and the DND issued us one starting around 92.
I always recall the old joke about: What's yellow and black and sleeps six?  A CE crew cab. 
So after all these years of neglect it is now an issue.  Funny, the neighbourhood depicted was considered the officers lines and we thought they had it better than us.  
Hope it works out.


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## klacquement (24 Apr 2012)

mad dog 2020 said:
			
		

> There was a $250 dollar claim for cleaning your Q when you left andnyou could do it yourself (multiple times, before it passed inspection or just give up) or pay housing to make the arrangements.
> Odd, the standard they demanded of you was unrealistic considering while the Q was empty CE would come in and do a complete inspection and repairs before the next resident.  In many cases the place appeared to never being cleaned and where did the $250 go you gave housing.



When I moved from one PMQ to another, I was charged for some damage. My wife met the new tenants and discovered that none of the damage had been repaired. Again, where did the money go?


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## heavy reader (24 Apr 2012)

When we lived in Rockliffe we had a severe mould problem. Cleaned each week with straight bleach to no avail. Eventually, they closed the base and relocated all military personnel out of the PMQ's. Then the government used the PMQ's for refugees who complained that they were not suitable to live in!

We also had lead in the water which was "above the Canadian acceptable limits" but was justified as being "below the American safe limits".  

Get out while you have your health.


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## Jarnhamar (25 Apr 2012)

I looked into a time machine and found this news article.



> OTTAWA - Facing cries for help from families of Canadian soldiers, the 2025 military ombudsman  said he is stepping in to help.


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## PuckChaser (25 Apr 2012)

Funny thing is, none of the PMQs will be upgraded by then, but we'll have another awesome Maple Leaf article about how many PMQs they've torn down and recycled!


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## ditchpig041 (29 Apr 2012)

It seems that half the time I post on here someone complains about what I write and I get "negative mil points" or whatever the heck that means, but what the heck.  Heres my 2 cents.

The q's are junk.   The base I am at is FINALLY doing something about them.. There are massive renovations going on, and its about time.  The base I came from, being Esquimalt, did nothing at all.  There were people living with tarps on top or their RHU's for years and still getting jabbed in the arse with rent instead of getting the problem fixed.

Heres the little bit of information....... everyone knows that the rents can go up and up and up as there is no "rental tennancy agreement" between yourself and the Feds when it comes to renting there.  That being that, one has to remember now that CFHA is no longer within a chain of command.  The base, and thus the base commander, is responsible for all "single shacks" that exist within the confines of the fence line, but not the RHU's.  They are owned and managed by a CIVILIAN company....

So lets think here.  I am seeing a poop load of "the other people" that live on federal land getting compensation when someone there files a suit against those responsible for the up keep of their homes.  Someone has to be willing to toss the threats from the CoC asside, and let a civilian company know that they are responsible too, and SUE on behalf of their families.  It doesnt take you to prove that the documented and complained about cases of mold in your house is making you and your kids sick, but them to prove it isnt.  Then when they open the walls at the points of the leaky pipes and have to start calling in mold repair teams wholesale, I am willing to bet things are going to change.

Until then, all you are going to have is a lot of folk bantering between public forums and facebook about how they want something done, and CFHA getting your money while doing nothing.

Anyhoo, I have to go off to work to patrol my wonderful mold filled neighbourhood.

Have a great day in the branch.....


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## aesop081 (29 Apr 2012)

ditchpig041 said:
			
		

> They are owned and managed by a CIVILIAN company....



The PMQs (RHUs) are not owned by CFHA.

The are managed by CFHA (not a "company" but a Special Operating Agency within DND) who reports to ADM(IE).




> The base, and thus the base commander, is responsible for all "single shacks" that exist within the confines of the fence line, but not the RHU's.



CFHA works with Base commanders to administer RHUs/PMQs as set out in DAOD 5024-0



> base/wing commanders:
> 
> administer and maintain furnished DND living accommodation within their area of responsibility;
> approve the eviction of occupants from DND living accommodation;
> ...



I don't mind a good bout of CFHA-bashing myself but lets do it with straight facts.

Yes, i have lived in PMQs.


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## Aerobicrunner (29 Apr 2012)

ObedientiaZelum said:
			
		

> I looked into a time machine and found this news article.



Thanks for that chuckle.


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## ditchpig041 (29 Apr 2012)

First of all, that was WAY to quick to dig up a DAOD.... especially on a Sunday..... Just saying....

But as it says, and like I said, the base / wing commander deals with "furnished" places, such as the "shack": in the fence line, or the enhanced single quarters (should your place have something like that, which not every base does), whereas CFHA takes care of the RHU's.

I followed that DAOD, which tells you, in regards to CFHA ;

CFHA
 recommend the development of capital, operations and maintenance projects for unfurnished DND living accommodation; 

set the charges for unfurnished DND living accommodation and associated parking in accordance with the Policy on Management of Real Property of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat; 

develop and implement procedures for administering, operating and managing the unfurnished DND living accommodation portfolio; 

implement programs and initiatives within authority limits; 

approve evacuation from unfurnished DND living accommodation for maintenance related emergencies; 

recommend the eviction of occupants from unfurnished DND living accommodation; 

conduct site-by-site residential housing studies of CF locations within Canada; 

develop, implement and monitor plans for the replacement, renovation and maintenance of unfurnished DND living accommodation; 

recommend requirement levels for unfurnished DND living accommodation on a site-by-site basis; and 

prepare unfurnished DND living accommodation options and strategies, including site analysis and business cases.


Now this leads to the "Policy on Management of Real Property of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat" which, after a read regarding contaminated areas (mold being a contaminant)



6.1.12 Known and suspected contaminated sites are assessed and classified and risk management principles are applied to determine the most appropriate and cost-effective course of action for each site. Priority must be given to sites posing the highest human health and ecological risks. Management activities (including remediation) must be undertaken to the extent required for current or intended federal use. These activities must be guided by standards endorsed by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) or similar standards or requirements that may be applicable abroad. The costs of managing contamination caused by others must be recovered, when this is economically feasible.


Now, someone making an official complaint, now makes the mold a "Known and suspected contaminated site", at which point, remediation must be undertaken to the extent required for current or intended federal use (that being living).

So it is upon CFHA, the great monster, to follow the guidelines it states, and remediate any contaminated faults that cause health issues and or harm to one or ones family.

Now, according to the CFHA website,

"The Canadian Forces Housing Agency (CFHA) is the managing authority for the Department of National Defence (DND) housing portfolio. They operate, maintain and allocate approximately 14,000 DND residential housing units at Army bases, Navy bases and Air Wings located at 32 sites across Canada. CFHA's duties include the allocation, maintenance, repairs and recapitalization of the housing units, the administration of the shelter charge system and the strategic management of the housing assets on behalf of the Department of National Defence. "

So therefore, if they are in charge of the maintenance, and your mold is not addressed upon a complaint, then I believe that they are able to be held responsible.

Now perhaps I am reading too far into all of this, but, if they are an outside federal agency designed to oversee the management and repair of federal housing for houses on National Defence holdings, then they should be able to be held accountable, and thus legally liable, for any sickness / health issues.



All it takes is one person to make case law.....


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## ditchpig041 (29 Apr 2012)

And just a quick side note here.... the policy definition of "contaminated site"

Contaminated Site (Site contaminé) 
A site at which substances occur at concentrations that: (1) are above background levels and pose, *or are likely to pose, an immediate or long-term hazard to human health or the environment*, or (2) exceed the levels specified in policies and regulations.


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## aesop081 (29 Apr 2012)

ditchpig041 said:
			
		

> First of all, that was WAY to quick to dig up a DAOD.... especially on a Sunday..... Just saying....



All I did was type "Canadian forces housing agency" in google and followed the bouncing ball. Not too labour intensive. Something I am sure that anyone who has a beef with CFHA is capable of doing, no matter what day of the week it is.

Just sayin'


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## ditchpig041 (29 Apr 2012)

That wasn't meant to be an insult at all btw..... It's always nice when someone comes back with a reference is all.  I guess that's the wonders of typing back and forth through a computer.

I'm used to having bosses blab and make it up to a member to find a reference.


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## SeaKingTacco (29 Apr 2012)

Ditchpig,

You did not exactly cover yourself in glory in the post where you got the basically fact of the legal status of CFHA wrong.  Kind of ruins your credibility.

Cdn Aviator, on the other hand, has gotten it right.


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## ditchpig041 (30 Apr 2012)

Seaking


I have been told time and time again that everything is in the interpertation of DAOD's and CFAO's and all that fun stuff, which is why one clerk will tell you one thing, and another something else, until a third clerk takes your money away from you.

As far as I can read from the loop of links, is that they are an agency that is in charge of managing and maintaining the residential units that CF members reside in.  If they are the ones that are responsible for the maint. of said units, and they fail to follow up on the complaints of members that are living in the thus "contaminated units" then the liability falls on them for any health issues that may come up due to mold sickness.

Again, we are in the day and age where every branch of the government is being held accountable for either its actions or its inactions, and if they are the ones that manage, then they are the ones upon which the hammer falls when there is a problem.


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## Dirt Digger (30 Apr 2012)

So far I've seen talk of "contamination", but nothing indicating that any actual sampling for mould has occured.  

BTW:  I'm not talking about, "I saw this stuff and it was mould."  We are surrounded by a huge variety of mould and pollen spores - most of which have zero impact on our health.  You would need to have positive confirmation that indoor spore loads are well above outdoor levels, or the presence of mould species that are associated with health problems, such as Stachybotrys (black mould).


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## PMedMoe (30 Apr 2012)

Dirt Digger said:
			
		

> So far I've seen talk of "contamination", but nothing indicating that any actual sampling for mould has occured.
> 
> BTW:  I'm not talking about, "I saw this stuff and it was mould."  We are surrounded by a huge variety of mould and pollen spores - most of which have zero impact on our health.  You would need to have positive confirmation that indoor spore loads are well above outdoor levels, or the presence of mould species that are associated with health problems, such as Stachybotrys (black mould).



 :goodpost:

A caveat:  Not all mould that is black in colour is Stachybotrys.

But yes, I love the people who complain about mould in their RHU but say they have no symptoms when they are outside.  Or people who claim allergies without any medical test results.  As stated above, mould is ubiquitous.


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## Strike (30 Apr 2012)

PMedMoe said:
			
		

> Or people who claim allergies without any medical test results.



In the same vein, just because someone living in the Qs has an allergic reaction while at home (basic watery eyes, congestion, etc.) does not mean it's from the mould.  Could be something as inocuous as dust.  But everyone is a doctor of course.


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## medicineman (30 Apr 2012)

Strike said:
			
		

> But everyone is a doctor of course.



And have All Stateitis ("something for nothing" syndrome) until proven otherwise...as Moe noted, most black mould isn't the bad stuff, it's mildew, palin and simple.  But of course, mildew isn't all that newsworthy.

MM


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