OYO Hotel Mi casa, Oaxaca centro

We loved our stay. The location was excellent, the hotel was clean, and the staff were friendly, all at such a good price. For a meal, try the Tlayuda restaurant next door. It was one of the best and most authentic meals we’ve had in Mexico.

We needed to wait for a bus after checkout and asked if we could leave our luggage. They charged us 50MX$ for storage, then still kicked us out of the hotel. It was very quiet while we were there, which we’d thought was a good sign, but maybe that was because the service was so awful. The staff were super unfriendly and didn’t seem to care about their guests.

This stay turned into a nightmare for our group of nine over three days. The owner himself managed to anger all of us. At first the hotel seemed suitable, but after a long drive we tried to shower and found there was no hot water. We ran it for ten minutes, were told to wait longer, and after another 30 minutes there was still nothing. We eventually showered in cold water. We were promised a repairman or plumber would fix the boiler, but nothing happened. The owner tested it and said it didn’t seem cold. It was freezing, and nine guests telling him so didn’t stop him calling us liars. If the hotel had said it only had cold water, we wouldn’t have complained. It was his dismissive, insulting behavior and refusal to take responsibility that pushed us too far. The owner also had a timid Pit Bull who seemed to have been abused. I wish I’d recorded what happened in the kitchen: he grabbed the dog by its hind legs from under a bench and dragged it four or five meters across the floor in front of us. The dog struggled and shook, and I’d noticed it had crawled under the bench because it was afraid of him. One night around 9 or 10pm, we came back to find two girls in the lobby, sitting on the guest lounges with the owner, his friends, and his sons. They looked possibly underage and like they might be prostitutes. They seemed deeply uncomfortable as the men drank and smoked. There was nightly drinking and partying in the lobby, which is attached to the dining and reception areas. The men the owner invited looked like thugs involved in crime, stared lewdly at women in our group, and sometimes asked women passing by alone to join them. It was very uncomfortable to walk through. There was one staff member doing nearly everything for the entire hotel, cleaning, security, check-in and check-out, while the owner and his friends used the place like their personal lounge and left him to clean up. We came and went at all hours across more than 24 hours and never saw him stop working. He looked miserable, had no apparent rest or breaks, and seemed confined to the hotel. To me, this was modern-day slavery. The hotel also involves animal abuse, possible underage prostitution, noise pollution, and terrible customer service. I was disgusted by how we were treated and want other tourists to avoid having their trip spoiled. The photo attached is of the hot water system.

I found bedbugs in my bed, there was no hot water, and the owner just laughed when I brought it up. The rooms have no sanitation. It was a horrible experience.