"The truth, always the truth--at all costs"
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| 202 10/15/2002 Squalor, Rats and Filth Going Unrepaired at Camp Pendleton; 10:10:02 Ramona and Mike Byron |
OBSERVATIONS AT CAMP PENDLETON FAMILY HOUSING By Ramona Byron, observations and pictures taken on 10-10-02 There were photos that accompanied this report, but our website cannot accomodate them at this time. When we have the ability, we shall incorporate them in this story. The photos are dramatic evidence of what the Byron's have to say about the suffering the families and our servicemen must endure to protect and possibly die for our nation. The Editor, TAN. ********************************************************** I saw floors that were so rotted that you could see right through to the water heater on the first floor. I walked on floors so rotten that they had a “springiness” when you walked on them. It worried me when more than one person was standing in one of those rooms. I didn’t want to stay in those rooms very long. The residents say that they are going to be charged for repairs for this when they move out, even though the damage was already there when they moved in! That was because the replacement tiles didn’t match, as if the residents had had any choice in the matter! I saw mold and rotten stuff. A lot of it. I saw a mushroom growing out of the bathroom wall above the bathtub. I saw the resident scream and shudder, and then begin crying when she realized what it was. She had video-taped the entire place about two days before, and the mushroom hadn’t been there then. She was so freaked out that it took her almost an hour to recover her composure. Even then, every time she thought about the mushroom in her bathroom, she looked like she was going to throw up. I wasn’t feeling so good myself at that point. I saw a water hose running from outside of an unoccupied house, through a window to the inside of it, to be used for “cleaning.” The water had saturated the walls around the windows, the doorbell, and the outside electrical light. I saw the hose stuck out of the window of an upper story of the house, pouring water out. I saw the water flooding out of the house and across the porch. I sort of figured that a lot of the water and mold problems may be related to this completely insane manner of cleaning. Would you do this to YOUR house? This is what they consider “professional cleaning.” The residents have to pay over $400 dollars when they leave for this “cleaning,” and they are not allowed to save money by doing it themselves. They are also charged for this “cleaning” when they have to leave their quarters because they are uninhabitable, and then they have to pay the “cleaning” fee of over $400 when they leave the temporary quarters and move into permanent quarters. And speaking of soaked-up walls, I touched a bathtub that had an electric current running through it. It sort of vibrated when you touched it. I’m sure that the effect would have been much more unpleasant if you were standing in water in it, taking a shower. God help you if you tried to take a bath in it! I saw the duct tape around the stove vent that the housing maintenance apparently thought would serve as a sufficient deterrent to mice. Doesn’t look like it worked. On the right here is a picture of a mouse “highway” in that same upper kitchen cabinet, that is the cabinet floor beneath the duct-taped vent that you see on the left. The resident said that the duct tape fix had been made about three months ago, and the previous mouse droppings were cleaned up then. Obviously, she hadn’t been real eager to put anything up there again and hadn’t looked up there since. Sometimes, denial is all that helps us get through life. On seeing this, her sister, who is dying of cancer, freaked out, and wanted to get her newborn baby out of the house as soon as possible. Never mind that she can’t take care of the baby because she is so ill herself. She’s just got to get her baby away from a host of rodents. The resident of the house said that she had to present 16 mice to the housing maintenance administration before they would admit the house was infested. Looks like she’ll have some “happy hunting” if she puts a glue trap on this mouse highway. I heard about four children in the same conjoined 4-compartment building, that had developed leukemia. I doubt that this is a mere circumstance. I heard from family members who are constantly sick with asthma and e-coli infections, who didn’t have these problems before. By the time that this informal and impromtu tour of base housing was over, I was feeling very tight in my lungs and had an almost constant urge to sneeze. I also had a headache. I felt like I needed a long, hot shower. I wondered how people could live like this, day in and day out. I wondered why we are forcing our military members and their families to live in this squalor. I wondered where the hell the Health Department was. I wondered how we can send military members out to die for our country, while their families are becoming more and more unhealthy and are actually dying from this filth. I wondered why the only housing inspector who ever tried to improve this situation, was fired shortly after he had talked about it with Darrel Issa, the incumbent Congressman. -- In short, I WAS MAD AS HELL. |
