Army mum 'told off' for getting heating repaired to keep newborn baby warm
A mother living in Army housing says she was "told off" for using an "unauthorised" engineer to fix the heating in her military home.
On Sunday 11 December, Army mother of two, Madison tweeted: "Why Army accommodation is a JOKE: it’s -5°C, there's snow, you have a one-month-old baby (and a 3 yo) and when your heating breaks @PinnacleSF don't consider it an emergency to get an engineer out to you until Tuesday, nor to provide heaters.
"We had to pay privately for an emergency plumber to come out today because we weren't prepared to be without heating in this weather WITH A NEWBORN."
Nearly three days after she had paid out of her own pocket for the repair of the broken heating, Madison says she received a telephone call from VIVO Defence Services.
In a recent post to Twitter, she said: "It's now 60 hours since we reported it and we've not heard anything from them (apart from to be told off for bringing in an 'unauthorised engineer'.
"I tweeted Pinnacle on Sun about broken heating, they asked me to DM them – I did on Tues AM and they didn't reply but did get VIVO to give us a ticking off for bringing in an 'unauthorised engineer' to fix our heating when they wouldn't."
This comes as serving personnel, including some senior military officers, hit out on social media about the poor service from firms responsible for maintaining UK military homes. Some service families say they have been without heating or hot water in their military homes for months.
In another case involving a serving British Army officer, he posted to social media that he is 'tired of living like this', as his newborn baby is forced to sleep in mouldy military home.
Jerry Moloney, VIVO Defence's Managing Director, said: "A key part of our role as a maintenance provider of military housing is to ensure that properties are safe.
"As a private contractor visited this home to work on the boiler, one of our gas safety operatives checked to see what work had been carried out and to ensure the person was Gas Safe registered."
The company, which is responsible for carrying out maintenance to service family homes, added: "We have a duty to ensure the occupants' safety has not been compromised and we were satisfied the work had been carried out by a bona fide engineer in a safe way."
An MOD spokesperson said: "It is unacceptable that some of our personnel and their families are not receiving the level of accommodation services that they deserve and we are investigating what happened in this case with our suppliers.
"Loss of heating and hot water should be responded to as soon as possible and within 48 hours."
Meanwhile, the shadow defence secretary says around one in three service personnel are waiting for repairs to their accommodation, a situation he describes as "a straight-up scandal".
Labour's John Healey said he has been contacted by Armed Forces personnel living with accommodation problems, such as mould, who say they have been waiting months for repairs.
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