What's the seediest hotel you've ever stayed in?

In My Humble Opinion
21

What a great question!

About 5 years ago I was very new in the workforce (halfway through college) and had to take a trip to Detroit to work on one of my company’s machines. Highland Park is the area, if anyone is familiar. Anyway, it was an impromptu trip, so I just told my boss “I’ll just find somewhere to sleep when I get there.” I had been known to sleep in my car if I couldn’t find a place at the last second, so I didn’t really worry about it too much.

I arrived at the client’s site in the afternoon, expecting to get the problem fixed in a few hours. Well come time 5am the next morning, I was finally done! The tech who was a very nice guy (Rob) and had stuck by me the entire time to fetch tools, etc for me during the entire process, said “Where are you going to sleep anyway?” I told him I didn’t have a place. So he kindly offered to hook me up with a place that his buddy owned that was just down the street!

Keep in mind, at the time I am a 20 year old white boy from rural Indiana. I don’t believe there is a single white person that resides in the Highland Park area of Detroit. While this didn’t intimidate me in any way, it did add to my feeling of being out of place, one of the first times I had ever truly felt like the “minority”.

It didn’t take long for me and Rob to walk to the hotel. After patiently waiting in line behind two prostitutes and their John’s, I was able to attain my room.

The hotel was arranged in a “square” formation. All of the rooms faced inward where the cars parked in the center of this square. On my way to the room, I had to pardon myself by numerous patrons just sitting on the porch, most of who were smoking dope. This is 4-5 in the morning… and I have 20-30 pairs of eyes just staring at me going to my room.

I put the key in the doorknob, to discover I didn’t even need a key. I guess it was just a formality, as the lock didn’t work. I walked in on what people from my town would describe as nothing less than a bomb site. Holes in the carpet, no clock, no phone, holes in the wall where rats made their way in and out of the room, rust filled bathtub and sinks, a TV with no channels (all snow). I was about to lift back the sheets, and I thought to myself… ok if I even see one spec of anything on these sheets, I’m going back to my car. At this point, only reason I had NOT gone back to my car, was simply out of respect for Rob. This is what he lived in every day, who was I to say it wasn’t good enough for me? Fortunately, the sheets were relatively clean, so I passed out for a few hours before checking out and heading home.

The cost for this room was what I considered a bargain, at $10. When I returned my room key the next morning the clerk thanked me and gave me $5 back… 5 of the 10 dollars I had paid the night before was a deposit for the room key! :slight_smile:

This was my first encounter with how horrid our inner cities really are. At least until I was able to get to NYC for a few months into some of the burroughs. Since those times I have made it a point to read and attempt to understand how these conditions came to be… maybe I can help some day =\

22

A little rat hole down near Rosarito Beach, Mexico (Baja). We wandered into the bar and gave the bartender a $20 for a room key.

It looked ok until we turned off the lights. We could see light from the room next door around ALL FOUR SIDES of the wall! Yep, it was being held up by the dressers in each room.

Do not drive to Mexico when you’ve been drinking a lot.

23

  1. Marseille, France.
    The hotel was small, but the reception area looked clean and respectable. We did begin to wonder when the proprietress pretended not to understand my passable French when I asked to see the room, but it was getting late, so we took it.
    The room, when we went in, had an odd, sooty look. On closer inspection, every surface - headboard, window frames, wardrobe, table, lavatory cistern, lavatory seat - was absolutely covered with cigarette burns. I mean ‘covered’ quite literally. It was like some sort of art installation. There was no ashtray, so maybe this was a sort of protest. The unwashed sheets, smelly lavatory and lorries (trucks to you) revving up outside the window all night were a bonus.

  2. Brighton, England.
    We were attending a conference, so were obliged to take anything we could get. What we got was a room at the top of a huge, decaying Victorian guesthouse just off the seafront. The tiny room stank of old sex, the floor was covered in stained lino and the sheets smelled like a tramp’s sleeping bag. Oh, and in the toilet was a big bin, full to overflowing with used tissues and used condoms. We skipped breakfast, but the landlady whom we met as we were leaving the following morning turned out to be sweet and very helpful, so we never reported it, which is probably why the place has survived.

Great thread - some of your stories reminded me of Paul Theroux’s description of a hotel room in Guayaquil, Equador (In the Great Patagonian Express). Lying in his seedy room, he is annoyed by what he thinks is a faulty ventilator up on the wall. Next day, he reports it, only to be told there is no ventilator in his room. He then examines the ‘ventilator’ to discover that it is a hole containing a nest of black rats (the type that spread bubonic plague).

24

We got snowed in at Denver, found the last room available in the last hotel within miles of the airport, snow was coming down heavily, and when we went to close the door we realized that the door was so warped that it wouldn’t close. In fact, there was a substantial gap, which remained all night long, with snow blowing INTO the room, so there was a soggy, wet puddle by the door the next morning. Guess who had to sleep on the floor by the door? And yes, there were nasty sheets, bugs under the beds and in the bathroom, mold and mildew everywhere, and a heater that herked and jerked throughout the night but never managed to warm up the room.

Another interesting experience was in Bangkok. My brother and I thought we were fortunate to have found an inexpensive hotel, but the staff didn’t understand why we were there, since we didn’t accept any of their repeated offers for sex. Yet all the other patrons of the establishment apparently did accept the offers, for we heard everyone’s loud groaning and moaning throughout the night. Did I mention that the walls of the hotel were basically just thin particle board and did not even come near the ceiling, so that there was a substantial, about 6", gap between the top of the walls and the ceilings. So the effect was practically being in the same room with all that action.

Then once in a hotel in Guatemala, we stayed in a second floor room, and when you flushed the toilet, which was often and repeatedly because we all contracted terrible cases of Montezuma’s revenge, you could walk down the stairs and across the yard and step OVER the entirely open sewage trench, in which you could see the stuff you had just flushed making its way through the half pipe and toward the main sewer line by the street. Yuck.

25

The Kinney Hotel in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, circa 1978. That was for a night. I’ve stayed at a few residential Hotels that were not exactly the Hilton either.

But the Kinney was special. It wasn’t even a piss in the sink hotel. No running water an any room. A shower at the end of the hall, that did not work. And that was fine, because it looked like it had not been cleaned in years. A filthy toilet in another room down the hall. The only running water was a janitors closet. The lock on the door, was one of those hook in eye things, so anyone could open the door a few inches, and if they wanted to come in, a good push would have been all they needed.

Plus the usual amenities, lenoleum floors, naked light bulbs, roaches. And of course the usual cast of characters – hookers, dealers, parolees, drug addicts, drag queens, drunks ( oh that was me that night), and the night door man in a cage downstairs.

Why was I there? I was a guest of one of the residents. We closed the bars, and I couldn’t drive home, so I took up an offer from him to come to his place. Even in my drunken state, I knew it was bad, but when I left in the morning and saw everything in the light, I actually laughed it was so bad. But then I had to find my car in one if the worst niegboorhoods in the country. Even in the daytime that was scary.

I actually don’t live far from there now. The hood has improved over the past 25 years, but I get a kick out of remembering that night.

26

OK, I’ve only had time to skim, but now I feel better about OUR seediest rathole. A LITTLE.

Family-owned motel
$30/night (this was last summer)
Dog turds in the driveway (The people were real dog-friendly, I must say – they offered the use of their “dog pen” for our puppy during the day. Yeah right – it was all caved in, with huge boards leaning out of it over the top of the fence, grass up to my waist, and about 50 feet from a busy highway.)
Everybody in the office/rec room was smoking. Not many teeth to be seen.
Cheesy lock on the door.
Dingy yellow light outside.
Dingy yellow light inside.
I have given my dogs nicer blankets than those on the bed, with fewer holes and less dingy and worn.
Ditto for the carpet.
Cobwebs and spiders on the walls.
No handle on the bathroom window; it was stuck open.

Piece de resistance: Turd in the toilet.

We slept (not much) in our clothes on top of the “bedspread.” We had no choice but to stay there that night, as the whole town was fully booked with several events. We had paid cash in advance for two reserved nights (first mistake) when we checked in. The next night, we begged my mom, who lived an hour away, for asylum. Didn’t even try getting a refund – figured we’d cut our losses and get the hell out. Turned in the key and told them we’d been invited to stay with friends.

<shiver> I still can’t believed that Mr. S brushed his teeth with that water. At least he could pee without touching anything; I had to wait. I will never find a room in a non-chain place, sight unseen, over the Internet again.

27

We were attending a wedding in Columbus , OH. Everyone else was staying at the Sheraton, which was $150 a night.

My husband books us at the Howard Johnson’s. The groom keeps asking us, " are you sure you want to stay there."

Everyone else who hears about this places keeps asking us the same question.

It was pretty much a partial flop house for people who are just out of prison or about to go back into prison.

The outside was run down, slightly seedy. The inner hall ways were mildly scary. Our room, however, was perfect. Clean, neat as a pin and the air conditioner was perfect.

The tenants there, once I got over my initial fear of big burly men sporting fro’s wearing wife beaters (I was 7 months pregnant), were the nicest people I’ve ever talked to in a hotel.

It was $40. I still joke about this place to Mr. Ujest about how he jest treets me soooo fine.

The worst hotel was the Wayside Inn or Vagabond Inn (it’s one or the other) in Traverse City, MI this last July. Mr. Ujest’s best friends dad was in the hospital for his 9th heart attack and we (after dumping off the children at the inlaws) raced up there to lend emotional support to said best friend and family.

By the time we got up there two things happened:

  1. Said best friends dad was not having a heart attack, which was good!

  2. Every hotel in the city sold out. ( Peak season.) and we could not bunk at our friends parents house.

The only hotel that we found available ( after cruising the main strip which must have at least 50 hotels, all that said " No Vacancy") was the Grand Traverse Bay Resort. STarting at $250 a night. Not a chance.

We did one last pass throught the city, at at 11 pm, we decided to start heading south and find something farther out.

As we passed one sign, it’s NO VACANCY sign flickered over to Vacancy. Had their been traffic, we would have caused a major accident with the way we veered across the lanes to practically dive bomb into the reception room.

Yes a room was available. $100 for a smoking room. We didn’t care.

Yes, it was a smoking room. It smelled like an ash tray, it’s carpet hadn’t been cleaned of stains in probably 25 years. The furniture had looked like it had been through every Spring Break in Daytona and the box springs ( no cover on it) had stains on it
that were just disgusting.

The artwork on the wall wasn’t even nailed down, that is how awful it was. It was theft proof.

(The owner was from Yugoslavia and had bought the place in something like 1955. I honestly don’t think he had ever done anything but basic maintence to the joint since LGJ was in office.)

28

A real dive in Plateros, Mexico. My wife and her family were making a pilgrimage to pay homage to El Santo Niño de Atocha while I was just along for the eight hour, three bus ride which covered about 175 miles. The place where we stayed overnight was the only game in town. IIRC rooms were about $3.00 per night. Linen and towels about doubled the price but you got something back if you returned it. Cement boxspring. Mattress on last legs years ago. Bars on the windows. Room only slightly larger than the bed. Bare lightbulbs.

However, the place had abundant hot water and no visible insect or vermin infestation, which was a bonus in comparison.

29

I think I know the place you’re talking about. Was it near the airport?

…the worst hotel I ever stayed in was in Orlando. My dad had waited until the last minute to make reservations for Disney World over Christmas. We ended up staying in a Not-So-Quality Inn. The room stank horribly of chlorine, and there were roaches. It wasn’t horrible-horrible, but since I was only 10 at the time, I might not’ve noticed things like stained sheets and the like.

30

I don’t remember the name of the place, but it was somewhere in Arizona. A friend and I were travelling around and basically just stopping whenever we were too tired to drive on, which led us to many a stay at seedy places, actually.

That time, however, we pulled into a parking space under a flickering neon sign that kept failing with those bzzt bzzt noises you like to hear in horror films but are loath to encounter anywhere else.

When we went on to the reception it was manned by a young man with a sort of absent expression on his face. Upon our request if there was a room available he came to life and yelled into the adjacent room: “Mother, do we have a room available?”. A croaking voice from said room replied: “Yes, dear, I think we have ONE MORE ROOM.”

He then proceeded to hand us a key from a wall where about 20 more keys were hanging. As we walked out in the direction of our room, the neon sign above flickered to “NO VACANCY” (bzzt).

Here endeth the “Psycho Experience” and starteth the “Seedy Movie Experience”.

On our way to the room we passed a couple of other rooms. Nobody had bothered to lock their door, so we could see what was going on in there. Some people were doing drugs, a couple of men were barbecuing inside their room, strange men in tank tops were lounging about, leering and whistling as we walked past.

Needless to say, the key did not work in the lock and we had to barricade the door with the dresser. I won’t go into the details of the room, but let’s just say the Ritz it wasn’t. And no, light won’t scare them roaches. Not if there’s barbecue in the next room.

31

Some friends and I stayed at a real prize in Memphis (the place was named after the road that’s named after a certain singer from the 50’s who liked to gyrate his hips and sneer a lot). As I recall, we paid $22 for one night. For a double room. The first key we were given opened onto a room that hadn’t yet been cleaned up from its last tenant, so we requested, and got, another room. The carpet was either moss green or severely mildewed, I’m not sure which. The sheets were as thin as tissue paper, the bedspread was holey and stained, and the towels were all three, making a matched set. The phone was on the floor, I assume so the cockroaches could more easily reach it on those late nights when they were feeling peckish and wanted to order pizza. The shower ran out of hot water in 2 minutes flat and there was a hole in the shower wall through which we could peer into the next room (which was fortunately unoccupied). The shower opening was 3 feet wide and the curtain was only 2 feet wide. There were bars on the windows. We shoved a chair under the door before we went to bed, although since the chair was on casters I’m not sure what we thought this was going to accomplish. Around 3 AM we were awakened by screaming from the parking lot, followed by shouting and sirens.

When we checked out the next morning the clerk chirped, “Y’all come visit us again sometime!” We just stared at her with glassy eyes and walked silently out to the car.

32

I think I honeymooned at a nasty Quality Inn in Orlando. The rug was sticky and turned your feet black.

33

EW.

I remember sleeping in a very alarming truck stop as a child, driving from Winnipeg to Peterborough, Ontario. It was somewhere in the vicinity of Thunder Bay, and we stopped there more or less out of desperation. All I remember about it is that it was in a sort of large trailer, like it had been hauled there by a truck. There was a common bathroom, which Dad insisted that we wake him up if we had to use, because “anything could happen” (I let my Gothic little nine-year-old imagination fill in the rest). I don’t remember any other details except that it was SKANKY.

However, my dad, who has been to Guyana, Uganda, and DR Congo, and who backpacked on a severed shoestring across Europe (he had to sell blood at one point, in Greece), could probably tell you some other stories.

34

I stayed at a place in Atlanta that was so sleazy, men were waving twenty dollar bills at me when I walked out the front door. I didn’t sleep all night and made my boyfriend stay up with me on the phone (in Chicago!) so someone would hear my screams if I was murdered in cold blood.

35

A HoJo’s in Atlanta. It wasn’t that bad except that it turned out to be pretty much a whore house. We were kept awake all night by 2 men with 2 prostitutes in the next room.
In the morning I walked my dog down the stairs to the bottom floor and walked the length of the hall to get to the exit for the courtyard. Every room on the floor was open so you could see the filth and mirrors and stained red curtains & bedspreads. A couple of crack whores were inside the rooms, giving us the evil eye as we passed by. (Anyone who thinks prostitution is a glamorous profession should walk that hallway.) The experience was disgusting and unnerving.

In Vegas, the first vacancy we could find. There were 3 of us and one towel in the room. I called the desk for more, and the clerk suggested that we should share the towel. He finally agreed to give us extra towels for $1 each.

36

The Blackstone on Michigan in Chicago, facing the park. It was winter, the room was drafty, there was a sign saying DO NOT REMOVE THE WEATHERPROOFING AROUND THE WINDOWS. The ‘weatherproofing’ was rolled up towels on the sill and top of the lower section of the window. There was no hot water, only luke warm. For two days straight. The elevator didn’t always arrive, and never stopped within 9" of the floor so watch your step. When it started down it always free-fell a few inches first, then caught, then descended. But the lobby was really nice. Oh, and once, when we gave our destination, a cabbie said, “You’re actually staying there?”

37

OH MY GOD,

Late late at night, been driving all day,exhausted, some big event going on, no rooms to be had, we drove this way, then that way.
Found a room, OH MY GOD,
STUNK to highheaven, wallpaper stained with every stainable liquid known to man, mold growing all over the bathroom, up the walls, floor, OH MY GOD, bedspread and sheets stained and stinky,the sheets and carpet felt slighty damp, did I mention it stunk? OH MY GOD…
It was sooooo bad I took pictures, yes pictures,
If I knew how to post a picture I would.
OH MY GOD… I would win the "staying in the scummiest motel " award… Yes I would… Oh MY GOD.

Did I sleep on that nasty bed?
Hell NO… My body NEVER and trust me on this… NEVER EVER touched the mattress…
I literally HOVERED over it ALL NIGHT LONG.
Yes, it IS possible for a human to HOVER…