Tilbury Inn

The rooms were awful and didn’t feel clean. We booked two nonsmoking rooms, but both smelled of smoke and weed. The beds were poorly set up: just a flat sheet as the sheets, a very thin blanket with nothing else, and awful pillows. One mattress was normal, while the others were rock hard and uncomfortable. There was an office “swivel” chair in the rooms, rust on the shower head, and water damage on the floor. At check-in, the owner demanded a cash deposit. The website hadn’t mentioned one, and none of us had cash. When we asked what it was for, she mumbled and wouldn’t give us a clear answer. She refused our credit card and insisted on cash. She said it was refundable and that we could bring it to her before our stay ended. We then found online reviews describing the same cash deposit demand, with people saying it wasn’t listed online and that when they asked for their money back, she called it “their tip” or their “Christmas gift.” She also made us sign something without showing us what it was. My friends and I ended up sharing the room with less of the smoke smell. We were a bit loud one night, and the owner came to knock. She spoke aggressively, saying her whole family was on the other side and couldn’t sleep, and kept mentioning her parents and children. Then she got angrier and brought up the deposit again. We thought it might be a scam because it wasn’t advertised and other reviews described similar problems, so we hadn’t paid it. She and my friend yelled back and forth about the deposit and the noise. We would have been fine quieting down, since we understood people could hear us, but she shifted the whole argument to the deposit. She was rude, disrespectful, and deeply unprofessional. We also told her the rooms smelled of smoke and weed. She dismissed it by saying smoking was prohibited in the rooms, then said, “she cannot control what the Gen Z's do, you would know,” about the cigarette and weed smell. None of us smoke, and she said it because of our age. This was truly one of the most horrid travel experiences of my friends’ lives and mine.