The Hotel Guests
Atlanta, GA
Three men from South Carolina were visiting Atlanta. They called police to their hotel room. One man, 20, said he and his friends were in town for a concert at the Masquerade. He said they searched the Internet for the closest hotel to the Masquerade — and that’s how they wound up at the hotel on Ponce de Leon Avenue. The officer asked them to explain exactly why they called police to their hotel room. The 20-year-old man said he walked into the hotel room and immediately noticed there was no smoke detector. Then, he said, he opened the bathroom door and noticed the towels had yellow and brown human feces on them. He said his friends tried to turn on the radiator, and the knob fell off and the radiator was extremely hot to the touch. The officer examined the hotel room and “confirmed the room was just as [the 20-year-old man] stated.”
The officer explained that this was a civil issue and nothing criminal had occurred. He did file a police report for a health-code violation. The officer noted, “I also told the gentlemen that since the receipt stated on it ‘no refunds,’ that this issue was for a courtroom.” The three men left the hotel without a refund. Welcome to Atlanta!
Found in Creative Loafing
April 10th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Sounds like the ATL ain’t the place to be. Me, i’d like to see the room before monetary exchange. I got a room once and when I opened the door to the room—there was a real bad mildew smell, so I go to the office and tell the lady about it–she says—”there aren’t any other rooms available” (not a single car in the lot besides mine) and “NO” refunds—so I mentioned I had bad allergies and she said it wasn’t her problem. So I mentioned the health dept. and civil court and she reluctantly gave my money back and I got another room elsewhere with a pool, and a sauna, and a hot tub, and a weight room, and awesome service, and no poop on the towels either.
April 10th, 2007 at 5:00 am
The radiator was hot to the touch?! Why, I never! They should have been able to tell from the neighborhood and exterior of the place what the inside was gonna look like. Besides, when the web page said “Low hourly rates” some sort of alarm should have gone off.
Myself, I only deal with national chains. Once while staying in an unnamed chain, my GF grabbed the headboard in a moment of passion, and it ripped right away from the wall. Seems it was secured to the drywall with drywall screws and no anchors (looks like it had fallen before from the state of the wall) I took several pictures of the damage and included them in an e-mail to the corporate office. My credit card was refunded the entire cost of our three-night stay and I was mailed vouchers for another two nights accommodation at any of that company’s hotels (not just that chain, but any of the three chains that company owns).
April 10th, 2007 at 6:46 am
My husband and I stayed at a motel in a nice area of Corpus Christi for a month one night. I won’t say which motel chain, but the sign had a sun logo on it; and since we’ve stayed at many of these motels, we didn’t think twice about checking in.
The room was ok, but you could see evidence of some poorly repaired violent wall bashing in both the main room and bathroom. The a/c rattled like a freight train, and the shower had the force of an elderly man with advanced prostate disease trying to urinate. You could see through the towels, and the sheets were, I think ,10-count 100% sisal. We went to the pool area, there was green scum on the surface of the hot tub, and a very large, very dirty man marinating in the pool. So much for a relaxing soak for us!
In the middle of the night, our phone rang. Since we were in Corpus not for a vacation, but to visit a relative with terminal cancer, I was sure it was bad news. I picked up the phone to hear some woman sreaming at me “I know you in there with my man! Don’t lie to me! You f***ing my man, bitch! Let me talk to him! Don’t say he ain’t there, I’m next door and I can hear you!”
I was half asleep, and tried to reason with this woman, telling her she has the wrong room and so on, but she kept screaming, so I hung up the phone. It rang again, but I didn’t answer. Then again. I called the front desk, reported what happened, and the manager said he would look into it. (Yeah,right). About an hour later there was this screaming and banging on the door next to ours, and the same woman’s voice screeching to be let in. When she did get in, you could hear both her and a man having a knock down, drag out, threats of shooting, furniture smashing, all kinds of fun stuff.
Again I called the front desk, told the manager what was going on, that the police should be called, and again, he said he’ll look into it. And again, nothing.
We checked out early the next day, and asked for a refund (’sorry, no refund, you stayed the night”). I called the chain’s 800 #, and was told they’d “look into it”. Yeah, right.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:02 am
I donno guys, I check-in with a credit card. The refund is easy. Just call the credit card company and file a complaint.
I once stayed at, and yes I’ll say it, a Holiday Inn. Checked in, went to the room and found no roll-away bed as requested. The desk told use there was no more roll-aways. We spent about a half-hour using our calling card to call other hotels for a room. When we found one we went to the desk and told them we were leaving. (We being me, my wife and our 3 young kids). We were told we had to pay for the night since we were in the room a whole half-hour. Like, what, they have lots of people rent a room for 30 minutes! We had our kids with us for goodness sake! What did they think happened? Anyway, it took a couple a phone calls, but the credit card company processed the refund. I have no idea if the hotel every paid up, but I got my money back. Haven’t stayed at a Holiday Inn since.
The corporate owned properties are much more consistent than the licensee ones. Pays to check the ownership on some of the inconsistent chains.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I do have a really funny motel story that occurred on our honeymoon but, it would take up too much space. Suffice to say, it wasn’t funny at the time but, today, it’s hilarious.
Oh, and there was this other time that I was in Dallas staying at a Holiday Inn that was apparently near the Mary Kay HQ. I could tell because most all of the women in the bar wore pink. There was a case of mistaken identity the next morning at my breakfast table but, that’s another story.
Anyway, my job requires me to travel about 1/3 of the time. I stay in hotels about 60-70 nights/yr and I can say that I’ve never had as much fun as you guys. OK-maybe I have but, I’m not at liberty to say.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Did the three young men do some type of chemical analysis to determine the species from which the feces originated?
I like the way the first few sentences of the article read just like a “three guys go into a bar” joke.
April 10th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
those are some crazy stories. most stuff like that only happens at friends’ houses–lol. just kidding all.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Ironman, at the time, since we were there on a spur of the moment, we had brought only a debit card and cash. Never again.