I currently reside in military housing on Whidbey Island and have lived in base housing the majority of my life and generally always enjoyed the conveniences and perks that came with it.

I’m coming to realize that the feelings that the majority of the people had about a private management company coming into Navy housing were right on the nose. Myself and my husband have contacted American Eagle numerous times on various issues, only to find the so called community managers have no answers to our questions and pawn us off up the chain of command, only to have that person generally be unreachable.

With our move to a new housing area, the process left a lot to be desired. They were not clear about everything that would need to be done (paperwork, etc.). We were told that they needed five days for maintenance to get our new house ready, and even though we gave them two extra days by selecting our move-in date, they still were not ready. In the first five days we lived here, we received a notice from maintenance that they needed to come back and finish fixing a patch on the living room ceiling. We also were contacted by a local flooring company to confirm putting vinyl down in our laundry room the following day, which was the first we knew of it. We had already moved our washer, dryer, spare freezer and refrigerator in and hooked them up; as well as boxes from moving that were being temporarily stored there.

There have also been parking issues that have been brought up and American Eagle claims to be working on towing non-authorized vehicles. They’ve been “working on it” for months and there have been no changes. The one issue that they have addressed and resolved has been lawn care. It still took them quite a while (months) to get landscaping taken care of properly. I’d rather mow my own lawn and have them address more pressing issues.

If this is indicative of what military housing being run by civilians will be like, it’s easy to see why there are so many empty units in many of the housing areas. I hope this isn’t typical of PPV military wide.

Dawn Benz

Oak Harbor