Hello pretty ladies! My name is Toni and my Husband is Brady. We will be making the big PCS to Fort Hood from Fort Riley in December. My husband is currently attending school in DC and will be done in a couple more months. This I our first PCS move and I know NOTHING about Fort Hood, other than the fact that it's huge and that we will be calling it home for three years (at least). So here is the point, we have four kids and don't want to be homeless in Texas. So can anyone tell me about housing? Is it nice, awful, clean, old, spacious, falling apart??? Also, how hard is it to get a house and how long would we have to wait? We tried getting on the waiting list but housing won't touch us until we have signed out of Riley, by then we will already be en route to Hood, hence there is where my dilemma lie :(

Any info or advise anyone can offer us will be GREATLY appreciated. We are super excited to see Texas, just hope we don't end up living in a hotel or in our Uhaul lol

Thx,
Toni 

We PCS'd from Riley to Hood this year and as soon as he received his orders he contacted the housing office and they put us on the list and were tracking us for the simple fact they wanted to have a house waiting for us when we got here and they did! We love our house, we live in Pershing Park in a single story which is awesome for us considering we had a 2 story at Riley and we have a 3yr old & 1yr old so the single story works best. The majority of Hood housing has fenced-in backyards, THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY EXTRA FOR!

But just make sure your husband contacts the housing office as soon as he gets his paper orders, they will put him on the housing list, he will need to let them know around what date you will be signing out of Riley. Then he will need to call them and let them know AS SOON as he signs out from Riley and you start heading to Hood. They should have a home waiting!

PS-We absolutely love it here compared to Riley, there's so much to do in Texas and I had never been here before moving here. 

That is so strange, We tried the same exact thing. He has had his orders to Hood for months now, but they will not place us on the list until we sign out of Riley. We have submitted all the forms they asked for except for the leave form, since we wont be signed out of riley until right before we leave. It would be great if they added us to the list now and had a house ready for us when we sign out, unfortunately it isnt working for us that way. Maybe you know something that we dont. If you have any specific advise or the name of who you spoke to, I would greatly appreciate any help you can offer me. Thanks so much. 

You can get a leave form signed with a controll number and send it to them before you sign out of Riley. All it has to have is the controll number, you do not have to be on leave. 

We arrived at Hood today. Went to housing and we will get keys to our home in 2-3 weeks!! That's for a 4 bedroom. We could have got into a house in a week if we would accept a 1400 sq ft house. No way!! We are getting the largest 4 bdrm types they have! 

Oh wow...your there already JustcallmeSuz?

We will be there soon and I was wondering if you will keep in touch with me about how things are there?

Thanks 

of course! There is a Chili's restaurant on post!! Pretty cool! Two Commissaries two Px. It is massive! 

Yeah that figures. Everyone has been telling me traffic is bad. I'm worried my husband won't be able to come home in the morning and for lunch but we will see soon.
Also we have checked the weather and see its warm there I can't wait lol.
Have you seen bugs/exotic animals yet?
A lot of people have freaked me out about that. 

Nope, have not seen anything like that at all. Also, we drove all around today during what I would think would be high traffic and it was nothing like Lewis and I-5~ 

Ok good. I'm terrified cause of what I heard.

I really hope it's nice there and we will like it.

Also if you don't mind I would really like to keep in touch with you. This is my second move. I wasn't nervous about the first but I am with this one.
Not sure why though. 

Of course!! 

Thanks 

Traffic in Fort Hood is not close to bad. Where we are now it can take us 2 hours to go the 8 miles to the mall. No exaggeration. Fort Hood you have the busy time but its not bad at all. This coming from someone who hates to drive and will not drive in bad traffic.

I promise yall its not that bad in Hood. We would go back. We heard so much bad about it and most of it was just personal experiences. It is what you make it. Promise :D 

Exotic animals? lol, like what? Rattle snakes, scorpions, red (biting) ants, wolf spiders, tarantulas, and palmetto (water) bugs (huge cockroach looking things) is as exotic as it gets.
Have housing spray for pests regularly and you won't have much problems. 

Traffics not that bad?! LMAO You obviously havent driven your hubby to work before P.t or tried to get on post during their lunch. One time I sat in the traffic for like an hour before I got on post. Booooo LoL 

Rena I have been here almost 5 years and NEVER sat in traffic going to or from post for an hour. I live all the way up WS Young and at most it has ever taken me to get home or get on post is a half an hour. 

For 3 1/2 years, we never sat in traffic after the first week of being there. Learning your side gates is the key. 190 can be insane though. You've got drivers from all over the world coming not only for the base but also the colleges and that is always interesting to deal with but often results in the daily 5pm accident somewhere. 

Nope not that bad. We have lived in a lot worse areas for traffic. They make Hood look easy. One place it took almost 2 hours to get the 8 miles from our house to the mall. Thats how it is on a daily basis including the weekends. Id take Fort Hood traffic any day! BTW we lived in Hood almost 5 years. Ive driven in all sorts of traffic there...lol. They have widened the roads since we left. It was worse then it is now. 

Well we finally made it to "The Great Place" and it's not so bad. It's a lot more congested than fort Riley was but the traffic isn't as bad as I expected. The traffic is far worse in Arizona during rush hour. My husband leaves for PT at 0430 and gets there in 15 min tops. It does get worse as it gets closer to 0600 but the early worm DOES catch the worm lol. The drive here was hell and the lodging was worse. Instead of getting to stay in the nice holiday inn, they put us in the Poxon house. Imagine 6 ppl in one room with two beds, not much sleep was gotten. My husband is still in-processing and has already made fast friends with some of the cadre. He was promoted to sgt en route so I pinned him myself ;)
He has really fallen into the role rather nicely, mostly because he'd been a corporal for over a year. He also ran into a couple infantry buddies who pcsd to hood as well. We closed on our house last week and that was a nightmare but we are here and we are settling in nicely. Thx for the help y'all. 

I'm glad you made it safe and aren't too unhappy. All lodging was booked when we got there, so we hotel hopped for 3 months until we almost signed paperwork to purchase a home in Copperas Cove when Housing called with an on post house ready so we backed out of the sale and are so glad we did.
Enjoy the great place! I'm really glad to hear your husband is fitting in nicely.