Hotel Mennini

I booked this hotel because it was fairly close to Milano Central Train Station. That was the only good thing about it. The building is old, and the rooms were awful. In the first room, the bathroom smelled like decades of cigarette smoke mixed with the cheapest air freshener. The second was the same. The third was a little better, though the thick curtains still smelled of smoke. Cleaning was superficial: the bathroom was dirty, there was hair everywhere, poop in the toilet, and stains all over. Disgusting. The whole floor was covered in cigarette smoke, and guests smoked in their rooms even though management knew and did nothing. This is a health hazard and violates the public-place smoking ban under Law 3/2003, as amended by Legislative Decree January 12, 2016, no. 6. The walls are paper-thin, and the doors slam shut. The keys wouldn’t turn to lock the doors, and there was no security chain or other lock on the inside. Around 11:30 p.m., a man came into the room next door and started yelling at a woman, possibly his wife, in a language I didn’t know. They joined in the argument, throwing things at each other and at the wall. It was frightening, and it sounded like it was happening in our room, so my dog started barking. Then the man came out, kicked and hammered on my door with his fists, shouted angrily, and imitated a dog barking. I was afraid for my dog’s life and my own. I grabbed my coat and ran downstairs to ask the night porter to call the police. He acted as if I were lying and said the man must have mistaken my door for his own and had only been knocking. I told him it wasn’t knocking and insisted he call the police immediately. He said nobody calls the police there and told me to go back to my room. All he did was come upstairs with me, knock on their door, whisper “shhhh” at them without saying anything else, and leave. The arguing continued until about 1 a.m., when the woman started crying and the man passed out, snoring like a bear. Since the door couldn’t be locked, I piled movable furniture against it before I finally fell asleep. At 5 a.m. they woke up and started yelling again. I called the porter, who was angry with me. He wouldn’t come upstairs and only called the next room. The woman answered that everything was all right. They left with their wheeled suitcases around 5:30 a.m., hammering on my door again as they went. I reported everything around 9. The morning shift knew nothing because, apparently, the night porter hadn’t even left a note. I still had to pay for the room; the morning porter said nothing could be done. There was plenty the night porter could have done, but he didn’t care enough to do it. He should have called the police to protect the other guests. Don’t stay here if you care about your safety. The hotel itself admits the doors are unsafe by telling guests to put valuables in the safe instead of leaving them in the room. I plan to notify the relevant authorities, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the Municipality of Milan about what happened. No one should be able to threaten or act aggressively toward other hotel guests. Shame on this hotel. I hope its license is revoked soon.