Hotel Impossible

Cafe Society
1

I stumbled on this show on Netflix and got hooked. Now I’m watching this season’s episodes on DVR. This week Anthony tried to work at a place in Florida called “Anice Inn and Suites”. For the first time on the show, he threw up his hands, stopped all the work and walked away. (Actually the second time; the first was the New England scammers who tried to get free renovations after Hurricane Sandy despite being well-funded.)

I have a couple of specific questions:

First, our DVR cut off the recording just before they displayed the update at the end. Anybody catch the update? I just tried googling for updates on that episode and I guess it’s too recent because I couldn’t find any. (I did note, that some people put up Yelp reviews citing the show.)

Second, I find it hard to believe that places like this (and similarly nasty restaurants on Restaurant Impossible) haven’t been shut down by local health departments long before they could be featured on any tv shows. How is that even possible? Tangentially, I also wondered why the producer or Anthony didn’t report Anice Inn to the local health department and explain why it should be condemned. Thoughts?

2

Some counties may not have enough staff to inspect places more than every couple of years, or the inspectors have so many places to visit every day that they’ll give a passing score if rats don’t jump on them, so a place that was borderline at its last inspection could go completely to hell before the next.

And never forget the power of an envelope full of cash.

As for the show itself not reporting or entering a complaint, pretty much all of these shows seem to have a “Prime Directive” to not interfere unless someone is about to die. I watch Renovation Realities now and then, and am frequently amazed that someone doesn’t stop the hapless homeowners before they take a sledgehammer to the load-bearing wall or stand on a bucket on top of a ladder to reach higher.

3

I know what you mean. This week’s episode was very close to endangering lives. They had severe mold in all the walls and carpets, severe bedbug infestation and a very large hive of killer bees on the premises. Given they’re in Florida they were only missing a few alligators and snakes! But seriously, they also had serious security issues (doors that don’t close, no security cameras, no exterior lights around one building), fire safety issues (expired AND empty extinguishers), and severe water damage all over the place.

Hubby and I have been marvelling that the show started off sending Anthony to fairly nice hotels, but they’ve been steadily decreasing in quality and this season they have him trying to work with some real shit holes. I want him to go back to real hotels now.

4

Can they get John Cleese to do a parody episode cross-over with Faulty Towers?

5

My DVR freeze-framed on the update at the end, which said that at Anthony’s request, the producers reported the hotel to the state (department of health, I think).

And last week’s hotel was pretty bad as well; a 48-room motel in New Hampshire with bed bugs in most of the rooms. The place was basically selling rooms to drug addicts and other desperate people. The hotel manager was being charged so much for the apartment in which she lived with her family that she owed money to her employers.

6

Thank you Dewey, that’s good news.

I saw that other episode also. The definition of slum lord, I guess. Let’s provide shelter to the downtrodden, but charge them up the wazoo for the privilege and not do any maintenance or cleaning. And act shocked that anybody sees fault in my “beneficence”. I wanted to slap those guys.

7

This. I started watching the show early on, but got turned off by the dumps he was trying to turn around. The only help he could have given to the last one that I saw would have involved a big hole and a bulldozer.

I won’t watch this anymore.

8

I can’t believe that “Anice Hotel” wasn’t condemned…I saw houses in North Carolina bulldozed after Hurricane Floyd with less mold than that dump.

9

Me, three. I particularly like when he brings a historic hotel back to life. They seem to be going for the gross factor now. No thanks.

10

The update after the Anice Inn episode said Anthony had filed complaints with the health authorities, who had issued Miss I Did Not Know a pile of citations. It’s still open and still a dump, according to TripAdvisor reviews. Yes, this was worse than the Woodstock Lodge episode last season - I didn’t think that was possible. BTW, there are 30 Orlando hotels with even *worse *ratings.

The two owners of the Nashua property are completely rebuilding the place (the third one, who cussed Anthony out, died in a motorcycle crash after filming), according to Anthony’s Facebook site. Give them credit for knowing they needed to change and for calling him in - there are some owners who simply need to be euthanized in the name of public safety, but they’re rare.

I am constantly in awe of Mr. Melchiorri for his ability to break down peoples’ resistance to recognizing they need to change, and why and how. He loves the industry in a way very few people in any line of work do, and, despite all the calculated attention-getting antics in the first part of any show, he actually has no ego at all. The best ones of all, to me, are the properties owned by people who had no experience, didn’t do their homework before buying, and are simply shell-shocked as they wait passively for foreclosure - Anthony can almost always show them a way out of trouble, and they sometimes literally seem six inches taller by the end.

I don’t watch the show to learn about hotels, but I do watch it to learn how to lead people, and there’s no better example out there. I got hooked a few years ago when he went to a small seaside place in Costa Rica, owned by a drunk/depressed owner who was driving it into the ground. He made the guy realize the problem wasn’t the property, or the marketing, but himself, and that led to his leaving the property alone for the GM to fix up instead. Most consultants would have handed him a list of action items and a bill, and that would be it, but Anthony is about pride instead.

That was also the first time I saw Blanche Garcia as the designer. If she’s not coming back, then she needs her own show. All these other weekly hires are OK but they don’t have her touch.

11

FYI, here is a review from TV.com with a screenshot of the ending text.

"Since Anthony’s visit:

At Anthony’s request, Hotel Impossible filed a complaint with the state of Florida.

After inspection, the state gave Anice Inn 38 separate warnings in 20 categories including fire hazards, insects and mold.

Ms. James is complying with all state requirements and the hotel is still open."

12

Haha, yeah, right. We saw clearly in the show that she says anything just to avoid conflict and never follows through. So, yeah, I’m sure, she’s complying. wink. wink. eventually. maybe.

I agree about Anthony’s leadership abilities. He’s a brilliant manager. You have to respect a guy who finds out that the bottom-level employees are doing a crap job because they lack training or equipment or direction, so he actually solves that problem for them. The only time in real life I’ve ever seen someone uncover a problem like that, they just suggest the fixes to upper management and leave it at that, so the workers just have to continue working without tools, equipment, training or direction. Or management fires them all and hires new people who still don’t have tools and training but didn’t complain about it (yet).

By doing this he really illustrates how the bottom level workers are often just as invested in doing a good job as the owners, and sometimes more so. People who scrub toilets want to take pride in their work and have a high work ethic. I hate managers who act like they have to force their workers to be there and do a good job.