Hashtag Kentish Town

My daughter got home from her study abroad trip to London about two weeks ago, and today we found bed bugs on some of the clothes she brought back in her suitcase, as well as on her mattress and bedding. It seems they came home from your facility with her and are now in my house. I’m appalled by what she told me about how unclean and uncomfortable her room was. We’re having an exterminator come tomorrow, and I’ll probably have to get rid of her mattress. I already threw away the nice new foam topper after finding bugs in it. We’ve been washing her clothes in hot water and drying them on high heat, and many nice things may have shrunk. This is incredibly frustrating, and resolving it is taking days. This is unacceptable given what we paid for her stay. Your staff needs to know, and the rooms need proper cleaning and high quality inspections before new students move in. So disgusting.

The whole place has a weird smell, and the restaurant downstairs serves awful food and coffee. The rooms are cramped in every sense: the bed is just plywood with a very thin cushion, there’s no air flow, and the only window opens about 5 cm. They give you one tiny fan per room, and there’s no AC, though I know that part is normal. The bathroom setup is bizarre too, with one shared translucent glass door for both the toilet and shower. Nothing is included in the room, so you have to buy every single thing, even hand soap. Most of the dryers don’t work, making laundry a nightmare, and the staff are super rude. On top of that, the fire alarms keep going off in the middle of the night. All the terrible reviews are true.

The front desk staff are lovely, and there’s a beautiful city view. They also provide crockery. But for the high rent, the room is shoebox-sized. There’s no oven, and the shower door was broken and never repaired, leaving the bathroom flooded for hours. The laundry machines are always breaking, and there are only a handful for the whole building.

There were constant problems with the Wi-Fi, and the fire alarms went off in the middle of the night. Doing laundry was no better, since the machines don’t work. The staff were usually rude and completely unhelpful. The place smelled awful, especially on the staircase to the basement, where I had to hold my nose. The lobby and rest of the building are decorated oddly. Our room was disgusting and hadn’t been properly cleaned when we arrived. It was tiny, barely big enough for one, yet they put two people in it. I slept on a 2-inch pad instead of a real bed, and it was even worse than it sounds. There was almost no ventilation. The window barely opened and had no screen, so bugs came in whenever we tried to get fresh air. The shower leaked too, which was a pain. I can’t believe this place has four stars. My experience with the Stay Club was horrible, and I’d stay away if you’re looking for somewhere in London.