Belle Aire Motel

I was extremely disappointed when we arrived for what was supposed to be a fun weekend away. There was mold in the tub, the fridge wasn’t cold, and the floor had old blood stains. The manager said they couldn’t do anything because they were booked. I politely asked if someone could clean it, and they said it would have to wait until the next day. They came in while we were out, but left the dirty mold in the bathroom trash can and put a bandage over our Wi-Fi box. Super weird.

The room smelled like mold, and there was mold in the tub jets, between the shower doors, and on the wall by the trash can. There was dirt and hair along the floor trim, long hairs, and some unknown sticky stuff on the side tables. The fridge cabinet had mold, though the fridge was on. This isn’t a good place for people with health concerns, kids, or OCD issues. There’s no staff in the office, so you have to call a different hotel to get a room code. They take your card over the phone for incidentals, and the property isn’t maintained. We weren’t even given a way to check out.

After working all week, I drove four hours and got there at 9:30 pm. I called the check-in number for a code, then walked into a room that had already been used. I called back, calmly explained what I found, and asked for another room. The woman didn’t seem surprised at all. She just said, “that’s our last room. Maybe you can find somewhere else.” She acted annoyed that I called back and kept saying, “well that’s your room. No one else is booked there.” She never apologized. There was also quite a bit more trash in the room than you can see. I found another property online, seven minutes away, and booked it. When I checked in, the woman there told me she’d been the one on the phone for the first motel. They’re sister properties. She knew it was late, that I’d likely driven a long way to this tourist area, and that I might not know where else to go. She could have offered to move me to the other motel at no extra cost, or at least told me it had availability, but didn’t. I’d had a rough week and was exhausted. I’d wanted to cancel my hiking trip, but couldn’t get a refund and didn’t want to waste the booking. Instead, I lost the money for the first motel and had to pay more for a second one. I’ve worked all kinds of jobs, from fast food to healthcare during COVID, under all sorts of stress, including after my dad died, right after giving birth, and after getting bad news before a shift. I never used that as an excuse to be lazy or avoid helping fix a problem I didn’t cause. If someone called me at bedtime after driving four hours to say their room was disgusting, I’d sincerely apologize, recognize how frustrating it was, and tell them about an available room at our sister property. It’s disgusting that they’re willing to run the business this way and not even try to fix their mistakes.

The front desk staff were very kind and helpful. But when we got to our room, there was poop in the toilet. We told the front desk, and he cleaned it. We then found out the toilet was broken because the flapper was broken. The non-smoking room also smelled like smoke.