Consumer Alert: Don't Stay at the Quality Inn in Lafayette, Louisiana

Ok, my devoted Cake Eater readers, this post isn't so much for you, but for the masses that come here via Google.  I'm metatagging the shit out of this post so I can warn people away from the Quality Inn at 2216 NE Evangeline Thruway in Lafayette, Louisiana.  Get what you will out of this post, but this one is for the Googlers. 

Where to start?

My sister, ML, had some bonus points on her credit card.  She wanted to be done with this particular credit card, for whatever reason, yet didn't want the bonus points to go to waste, hence she offered them up to my parents while we were all in Florida, to get them some free hotel rooms along the way to Austin.  Seems like a good deal, no?  Free hotel rooms across the thirteen hundred mile journey?  ML gets to cancel the credit card she doesn't like?  What's not to like?  It's a freakin' win-win, right? 

I handled this with my sister.  Once the parents had decided upon the route they wanted to take back to Austin, and where the designated stopping points for the three evenings would be, I coordinated with ML to get things arranged.  My parents don't like dealing with added bureaucracy, even if something free is the end result, so it was just easier this way.  We figured out that there weren't any bonus points hotels in Tallahassee, but there were on our two other stops for the trip: Ft. Walton Beach, Florida and Lafayette, Louisiana.   Mom looked over her options and picked the hotels she wanted; confirmation numbers were given and received, and when we were on our way, we thought no more about it. 

The hotel in Ft. Walton Beach was familiar: it was two doors down from my parents' usual haunt, and it was a Holiday Inn resort.  We knew it was clean and well-tended.  There were no worries beforehand, and when we arrived in the room, it was fresh, clean with a lovely view of the Gulf of Mexico. And it offered free DVD rentals, to boot. Couldn't have asked for more, except for an on-call, in-room chiropractor who could have fixed the Cake Eater Mother's back, but, hell, you can't have everything. 

The next morning, my aching mother ensconced in the back seat of the Impala, we went west, young man, and at around five in the evening, found ourselves pulling up in front of the Quality Inn in Lafayette, on the NE Evangeline Thruway.  Mom checked us in, per usual, because she digs hotel lobbies and the various and assorted brochures with which they can supply her.  Shortly thereafter, we had the keys to our rooms and we went about unpacking the car and getting settled in.  For the first two nights of the trip, we'd all stayed in the same room.  I may be almost forty, with a love of privacy, but I was traveling with my parents, with whom I've, literally, traveled thousands of miles over the years: old habits are easily fallen into with these two.  It was just like being a teenager again, on a road trip with my parents.  But this night in Lafayette, they had decided to get me my own room.  Mom wanted to stretch out, and sharing a queen sized bed with my father wasn't going to get the job done.  And because their room was free, they were going to get me my own room for the night, as a treat for all of us.  I was exhausted, after driving from the west side of Mobile, through Missisippi, and pretty much all of Louisiana, and I was looking forward to a glass of wine before we went and ate creole or cajun and listened to some music.  It should have been a fun, rejuvenating night.  

But it wasn't.

Now, you tell me, my devoted Cake Eater readers, if you saw a room like this on a website, you'd think it was pretty much your standard Quality Inn fare, right?  

Nothing fancy, per se, but it's a motel right off the interstate, and in a hotel such as that, all you really want is a clean room, with a bed with clean sheets, and maybe a fridge for your bottle of wine, right?  Cable is nice, but after a long day of driving you'll probably just fall asleep anyway.  You don't need much, particularly if you're only sticking around for a night, right?  

Looking at these pictures you'd think that it would fit this particular bill, correct?

Let me tell you, right here, right now, that you could not be more wrong when it came to the Quality Inn at 2216 NE Evangeline Thruway in Lafayette, Louisiana. 

This is what you got in reality.

Now, keep in mind that my camera was shoved into the trunk.  This is my mom's camera, and the date stamp is wrong.  The date should read: March 4, 2009.

So, one missing light switch.  What's the big deal, right?

Well, how does a mildewed lampshade suit you?

Or mildew on the walls where they'd recently moved the furniture?

What about some battered furniture?

Or a dirty mirror?

See if you can tell me what advertised amenities are missing in this picture...of yet another dirty mirror. The light over the sink doesn't look like it's on half power, but it is. 

This is just a small sampling of what we ran into in our first two rooms, 214 and 216, respectively.  I am not proud to say it, but I flipped out when I saw the mildewed lampshade.  This was after I'd noticed there were two pillows in the entire room, and that the bed had been sat upon and the sheets and blankets mussed...and not by me.  There were three lamps in the hotel room.  Only one of them had a bulb in it.  The plug on the microwave was entirely missing, because someone, apparently, had cut it off.  There were crumbs in the refridgerator door.  The mirrors were dirty, the floors were dirty.  Everything was filthy.  But it was the mildewed lampshade that really set me off.  Again, I am not proud of my behavior, because I scared the bejeebus out of the front desk clerk when I slammed said lampshade down on the counter.   I demanded he send up a cleaning crew and that he do it, pronto.  He nodded his head, eyes wide, and picked up the phone.  I left in the same huff that I entered the front office in. 

I should add right here, and right now, that I am not an overly fussy person when it comes to hotel rooms.  I'm just not.  I can deal with banged up furniture and a crappy Windex job on a mirror, because I've been there.  I have cleaned houses for money.  I have cleaned condos for money.  I have cleaned hotel rooms for money.  I have been employed by the "hospitality industry" in the past, and I know what it's like to be on a schedule and have to clean up after pigs.  And, yes, you Delta pilots and fight attendants who stayed at the Omaha Residence Inn at 70th and Dodge in the early 90's, I'm talking to you.  Who do you think had to clean up after your little trysts, wherein you used the damn fireplace in the middle of frickin' July, and left the sheets in such a condition that I wished I had a pair of industrial strength rubber gloves to wear while I stripped the damn bed? Who do you think had to fish your used condoms out of the toilet when they didn't flush?  Oh, sure you always left one room unused, but the other?  Complete and utter pigsty, people.  But it was my job to do clean up after you, so I did it, and I left any rooms I cleaned in pristine condition for the next guest who would occupy the room. (And you bastards never once left a freakin' tip.  Five bucks left on the dresser would have made it tolerable.  But you couldn't be bothered. Cheap suckers straight from hell, you people were.  I hated you.  And I still hate you, almost twenty years later.  Suck on it, you bastards.  I hope you rot in hell.) 

So, I can understand that perhaps maintenance doesn't have a spare credenza to instantly replace a banged-up one, and has to wait for it to come in from the warehouse before the old one can be replaced.  I can understand that maybe someone was in a rush and didn't make sure all the streaks were off the bathroom mirror before they handed the room over to the supervisor for inspection, and that maybe the supervisor missed it, too.  I can understand any and all things if the rest of the room is clean and fit to be occupied.  A ding here or there doesn't bother me.  I know how it works.  But when I find a mildewed lampshade?  Or the iron is completely missing?  Or the plug has been cut off the microwave cord?  Or it looks like someone has sat on my bed, that's missing pillows, and the ones that are there don't look particularly clean or fluffy?  Or if the lightbulbs to all the lamps but one are missing?  How, then, do I have the confidence that the rest of the room is clean when you can't get the little things right? How do I know I won't get eaten alive by bedbugs?  How do I know I will be sleeping on clean sheets, or I won't catch an infection when I use the shower?  These things matter, people.  If you can't get the basics right, how am I supposed to trust you when it comes to the rest of it?

It doesn't further boost my confidence when the cleaning crew who shows up consists of one old guy who doesn't speak any English, thinks a bottle of windex will cure all, and curses right back at me in Hindi, when I try to show him what needs to be done.  It doesn't boost my confidence that you know what you're doing when the two new rooms, 218 and 220, you try to give to us haven't even been cleaned yet.   And it really doesn't help the idea that you have no frickin' clue as to what you're doing when you try to give us another two rooms, which are again, filthy, and just for fun I decide to lift up one of the mattresses during my inspection to see what's there and find a very fancy, very large pocketknife that someone has left there, God only knows how long ago.

!!!!!!!!!!!

We should have left and found another hotel.  God only knows there were plenty of them within spitting distance.  But my parents were exhausted, and because my sister's credit card points were paying for one of the rooms, and they didn't want to renege on their offer of my own room, we stayed.  For the next half hour I supervised the cleaning of my room.  I sat there, with a glass of wine, and watched these two men, who had no idea what the hell they were doing as they changed the sheets, tried to reclean the bathroom, and washed the windows.  I asked them to come back and vacuum, but they never showed up, hence it didn't get done and I refused to walk in the room barefoot.  Bleech.  

After a fitful night, we got the hell out of there as soon as may be.  I cost my parents money that night because they didn't want to go back on a promise.We should have moved hotel rooms instead of staying and dealing with the problem. And if it wasn't for the credit card points, and the promise of a bed for me, none of us would have stayed there willingly.  They shouldn't have paid for that room.  And they'd better get a big honkin "we're sorry" and refund.   I have more pictures, of more disgusting items we found, that I could post.  Believe you me, we documented everything, and this is just a small sampling. 

Suffice it to say, I sincerely hope I cost the Quality Inn on NE Evangeline Thruway in Lafayette, Louisiana, some business.  No one should stay there. PLEASE DON'T STAY THERE. I don't care that they're under new management, or that the housekeeping crew has only been there for two weeks.  Their standards suck.  Where was the head housekeeper to supervise their work?  Where was the management, to make sure that the employees did their jobs?  But moreover, where the hell are the quality inspectors that the head company should be sending out on a regular basis to make sure things are up to whatever the Quality Inn company-wide standards are?  They'd better get their asses out there, and do it, toute suite, or they're just going to ruin their brand.