One In Ten Military Homes Has Been Plagued With Pest Infestations

Exclusive: One in ten military homes have suffered from pest infestations since 2022, as the armed forces continue to face a severe staffing crisis after an exodus in personnel.

Responses from ministerial questions submitted by Labour have found 5,123 service family homes – more than 10 per cent of properties – had been treated for pest infestations over the last two years. The figures represent all reports of pests in service family accommodation which include seasonal issues such as ants and bees.

Luke Pollard, Labour’s Shadow Armed Forces minister, said Government ministers were failing the forces and their families with the “dire state of service accommodation”.

Overall satisfaction with service life has fallen from 60 per cent to 40 per cent since 2010 according to research by the Ministry of Defence. The MoD found the level of satisfaction for standard family accommodation fell from 52 per cent in 2022 to 46 per cent in 2023.

Meanwhile the quality of maintenance repair work to properties dropped from 37 per cent in 2015 to 19 per cent in 2023.

RUSI, a defence think tank, found that the quality of UK service accommodation had “long been recognised” as a factor which made it more difficult to retain staff.

A landmark report from King's College London in May into Armed Forces housing found poor-quality military accommodation had become “a tax on the goodwill of Service personnel and their families”. The document found levels of satisfaction had fallen to record lows and was cited as a crucial reason for the fall in overall satisfaction with service life.

Accommodation failings span across both Labour and Conservative governments, and were believed to have been driven by “disinvestment, poor management and broken housing