By Jay Whipple
Trend Magazine Online™
Extended Stay Nightmare!cont'd.
Trend Magazine Online™
Extended Stay Nightmare!cont'd.
Picking up where I left off in Part II, Their housekeeping, maintenance, and security service was the most unprofessional that I
have yet to experience in my lifetime. The housekeeper from hell (Elly May)
never cleaned my room the same way two weeks in a row during my extended stay,
she would use my personal equipment then lie that she did not, she would leave
cleaning supplies in my room and actually left my door
unlocked all day on, believe it or not, four occasions to name a few incidents.
Even leaving a note on the inside front door would not trigger Elly May to
that conditioned response. She would giggle a lot while uttering fractured
sentences and phrases which gave me the impression that she was using recreational
drugs.
Their maintenance program
included the Onsite Manager (Granny) asking me if I would fix stuff and then
provide her with a receipt so that I could be reimbursed for the parts.but not
the labor. 
Security was non-existent in fact, when Granny went home at
night and on the weekends, guests were left alone to fend for themselves in
terms of safety. I am a travel writer and have reviewed quite a few other
properties and their service in comparison is severely lacking for overnight
and extended stay guests. My laundry list of deficiencies include:
Their sole
housekeeper (Elly May) was completely spaced out most of the time that I
interacted with her and even lied about using my mobile
phone charger to charge her personal mobile phone without my permission
or me being present. She was so spaced out that she did not even bother putting
my charger back where I left it in hopes that I would not notice that it had
been used/moved. 
A simple task like replacing the
toilet paper proved very complicated for her as I had to -- on multiple occasions
-- leave notes on empty rolls to remind her that it was time to install new ones
after the empty rolls alone would not give her a clue that they needed to be
replaced. I would sometimes have to do this for up to three weeks in a row. One
of the first things most hotel guests check for in their bathroom is the toilet
tissue! Even the slackest housekeeper would know to at least replace it to
avoid an obvious sign of poor/slack room service.
Another
obvious sign of poor housekeeping is the bathroom shower
curtain.especially when it is completely missing! Yes, I walked into my
bathroom on more than one occasion to find that very important piece of plastic
or vinyl missing in action. How can something so obvious get overlooked? This
supports my earlier theory that drugs may have played a role in this display of
a severe lack of concentration.
If that bit of information does not convince
you, Elly May would also on several occasions leave
cleaning supplies in my room to which I gladly confiscate for my own
personal use. The sad thing is that management was aware of her incompetence,
but I learned that she was related to the part-time fill-in manager/housekeeper,
and they decided that it was more important to keep her employed as opposed to
keeping the loyal guests happy. That lady was the only sane one of the Beverly
Hillbilly crew, so I refer to her as Miss Hathaway.
Their crack staff of maintenance workers were pretty good
except I would have to wait until they made their way to our Kannapolis,
NC, location which could take about as long as a circuit judge to show
up in Dodge City on the old Gunsmoke series.
This is the reason
why Granny would encourage her male guests to help her out and do-it-yourself
in return for a measly reimbursement on the parts and not the labor, fuel, or
time it would take to make a trip to the Lowe's hardware store. It is for that
reason, along with liability issues, that I did not entertain that thought ever
during my extended stay. So, it was not unusual to see light
fixtures hanging from my ceiling for days on end.
One of if not my biggest pet peeves is bugs, creepy
crawlers, and miniature flying objects (bugs) in my room. They were pretty much
non-existent for the first part of my extended stay, but they began to creep
into my room the longer my stay. I put two and two together and realized that
management was not performing pest control as often as at the beginning of my
stay.
Why, you might ask, money! That is a fixed cost that they cannot add to
your bill after your check in date.
Of course, they did raise my weekly rate
three times during my extended stay which infuriated me even more when the bugs
began to take up residence in my room. The spiders
developed a colony in my light fixtures and would continue to grow until I would
decide to clean them out myself after notifying management in writing on more
than one occasion. Sometimes those creepy crawlers would disguise themselves as
mold on the back of my bathroom door!
My toilet seat remained
unhinged for over a month before Granny replaced it with cheap flimsy nuts and
bolts that malfunctioned within a few days. There is nothing more aggravating
than sliding off the toilet seat while engaged in taking care of personal
business while reading a magazine! Their remedy for fixing a rust issue on the microwave was to simply paint it
with white appliance paint which works temporarily like that flat fix it stuff,
but eventually conventional wisdom suggests that the entire item must be
replaced for long term use.
They would eventually blame me for having to
replace their microwave twice because the first replacement did not fit under
the cabinet. The rusty one eventually stopped working at all. I was also blamed
for them having to replace their refrigerator which began making strange noises
not too long after I moved in and reported it on multiple occasions.
Their maintenance program
included the Onsite Manager (Granny) asking me if I would fix stuff and then
provide her with a receipt so that I could be reimbursed for the parts.but not
the labor. Security was non-existent in fact, when Granny went home at
night and on the weekends, guests were left alone to fend for themselves in
terms of safety. I am a travel writer and have reviewed quite a few other
properties and their service in comparison is severely lacking for overnight
and extended stay guests. My laundry list of deficiencies include:Their sole
housekeeper (Elly May) was completely spaced out most of the time that I
interacted with her and even lied about using my mobile
phone charger to charge her personal mobile phone without my permission
or me being present. She was so spaced out that she did not even bother putting
my charger back where I left it in hopes that I would not notice that it had
been used/moved. A simple task like replacing the
toilet paper proved very complicated for her as I had to -- on multiple occasions
-- leave notes on empty rolls to remind her that it was time to install new ones
after the empty rolls alone would not give her a clue that they needed to be
replaced. I would sometimes have to do this for up to three weeks in a row. One
of the first things most hotel guests check for in their bathroom is the toilet
tissue! Even the slackest housekeeper would know to at least replace it to
avoid an obvious sign of poor/slack room service.
Another
obvious sign of poor housekeeping is the bathroom shower
curtain.especially when it is completely missing! Yes, I walked into my
bathroom on more than one occasion to find that very important piece of plastic
or vinyl missing in action. How can something so obvious get overlooked? This
supports my earlier theory that drugs may have played a role in this display of
a severe lack of concentration.
If that bit of information does not convince
you, Elly May would also on several occasions leave
cleaning supplies in my room to which I gladly confiscate for my own
personal use. The sad thing is that management was aware of her incompetence,
but I learned that she was related to the part-time fill-in manager/housekeeper,
and they decided that it was more important to keep her employed as opposed to
keeping the loyal guests happy. That lady was the only sane one of the Beverly
Hillbilly crew, so I refer to her as Miss Hathaway.Their crack staff of maintenance workers were pretty good
except I would have to wait until they made their way to our Kannapolis,
NC, location which could take about as long as a circuit judge to show
up in Dodge City on the old Gunsmoke series.
This is the reason
why Granny would encourage her male guests to help her out and do-it-yourself
in return for a measly reimbursement on the parts and not the labor, fuel, or
time it would take to make a trip to the Lowe's hardware store. It is for that
reason, along with liability issues, that I did not entertain that thought ever
during my extended stay. So, it was not unusual to see light
fixtures hanging from my ceiling for days on end.One of if not my biggest pet peeves is bugs, creepy
crawlers, and miniature flying objects (bugs) in my room. They were pretty much
non-existent for the first part of my extended stay, but they began to creep
into my room the longer my stay. I put two and two together and realized that
management was not performing pest control as often as at the beginning of my
stay.
Why, you might ask, money! That is a fixed cost that they cannot add to
your bill after your check in date.
Of course, they did raise my weekly rate
three times during my extended stay which infuriated me even more when the bugs
began to take up residence in my room. The spiders
developed a colony in my light fixtures and would continue to grow until I would
decide to clean them out myself after notifying management in writing on more
than one occasion. Sometimes those creepy crawlers would disguise themselves as
mold on the back of my bathroom door!My toilet seat remained
unhinged for over a month before Granny replaced it with cheap flimsy nuts and
bolts that malfunctioned within a few days. There is nothing more aggravating
than sliding off the toilet seat while engaged in taking care of personal
business while reading a magazine! Their remedy for fixing a rust issue on the microwave was to simply paint it
with white appliance paint which works temporarily like that flat fix it stuff,
but eventually conventional wisdom suggests that the entire item must be
replaced for long term use.
They would eventually blame me for having to
replace their microwave twice because the first replacement did not fit under
the cabinet. The rusty one eventually stopped working at all. I was also blamed
for them having to replace their refrigerator which began making strange noises
not too long after I moved in and reported it on multiple occasions.
