This investigation was co-published with the Project On Government Oversight.
On the weekends, Aubrey Metzler lets out her frustration with military housing by screaming at strangers in the haunted house where she works, playing the part of “lunatic.” The 23-year-old mother of two has good reason to feel a little unhinged.
Metzler says her whole family has been sick ever since they moved into privatized military housing last spring on Fort Campbell, an Army base straddling the edge of Kentucky and Tennessee. Her 17-month-old son is so congested that he has trouble breathing. Her two-year-old daughter often complains of headaches and stomach pain, and both kids can’t use the tub in the upstairs bathroom without breaking out in hives. Her husband, an Army Private First Class, has recently been hospitalized for cluster migraines. Metzler herself throws up “every single day,” and describes the family’s housing challenges in a gravelly voice that’s punctuated by coughs and sniffles. On top of all that, the stress over housing has taken a toll on Aubrey and her husband’s mental health, she says, comparing her time working at the haunted house to “therapy.”