GS
Garey Schmidt
Jun 5, 2026
I checked into this hotel expecting a place to sleep. Instead, I was apparently booked into an active cockroach timeshare.
Within minutes of entering the room, a live cockroach greeted me in the bathroom. Not a dead bug. Not a random insect that wandered in from outside. A healthy, confident, fully-employed cockroach moving around like he was the general manager.
The front desk moved me to another room, which initially sounded like the right response. Then I discovered the new room was directly adjoining the original room. So rather than solving the problem, they essentially relocated me from one side of the roach neighborhood to the other.
At that point, I wasn't checking for amenities anymore—I was checking baseboards, corners, drains, and wondering how many of the bug's friends were currently drafting a lease agreement.
The most concerning part wasn't the cockroach itself. Bugs can occasionally happen anywhere. The concerning part was the feeling that finding one wasn't a surprise to the hotel. Moving a guest to the room next door after a cockroach sighting doesn't exactly scream "isolated incident."
I spent the rest of the stay wondering whether the walls were connected by drywall or a roach superhighway.
The staff was polite, but politeness doesn't make a room feel clean. If your first interaction with a property involves pest control concerns and your solution is moving ten feet away from the original problem, something is seriously wrong.
I've stayed in roadside motels, budget hotels, and aging properties all over the country and somehow managed to avoid this experience. Unfortunately, this hotel set a new standard—and not in a good way.
The cockroach was the first guest I met, and honestly, he seemed the most comfortable resident in the building.