The Hood House Bed & Breakfast Inn

The Hood House has a classic old-school feel and the hosts are wonderful. It’s also close to downtown Saratoga, which is convenient. One drawback: the downstairs floors are so noisy that it’s impossible to walk across them quietly in the morning while others are still sleeping.

I found the whole stay incredibly creepy. The house smelled old and dusty, like a grandmother’s place that hasn’t been cleaned because she can’t see well anymore. There were tacky knickknacks and pictures everywhere, and the atmosphere made me half expect ghosts or someone to get hacked apart in the basement. It cost $156 for one night, which felt like a ripoff. I’ve stayed at Holiday Inns for $100 a night that were ten times cleaner and didn’t feel so weird.

I used to really like this place. A few friends and I rented the whole house several times, cooked for ourselves, and left it cleaner than we found it. On our last visit, the owner got extremely upset, saying we’d lied about the number of guests, even though she had quoted us based on the number who came. We’d worked hard to clean up and even left her a small gift basket, but she charged almost double to the credit card and left a nasty message. It’s too bad a small local business chose to treat repeat customers this way. They’ll lose nearly $1,000 a year from us.

I stayed here in August and enjoyed the house. It was very clean, and being just a few blocks from downtown was nice.