Matador Motel, Chico

The motel grounds are beautiful. It's in the mission style, and the architecture is wonderful. BUT!! We didn't know that Chico would be completely booked a year in advance for the university graduation, and when I spoke to the manager to book the reservation, she commented on how it was so wrong that other hotels/motels raised their prices for that weekend. When we arrived, however, she told us we owed more than she had quoted us, probably knowing we had nowhere else to go. Not a good start. And on top of that, we didn't have the room she had promised. As beautiful as this place could be on the inside, it looks like it hasn't been painted in decades, especially the office, which has dirty handprints all over the walls, and it smells bad, like a wet dog. (There IS a huge dog that inhabits it.) Our room smelled like cigarettes, and again, the walls had dirty handprints all over the door and walls. The drapes had food stains splattered on them. The TV on the wall was plugged in with an old extension cord. The handles on the vanity were missing. The handle in the shower was coming off the wall, and there was more air than water out of the spigot. It dripped all night, so we had to close the bathroom door to sleep, and when we opened it in the morning, it was completely steamed up because the dripping water had been hot. There's rusty, chipped paint on the window in the bathroom. We had no control of heat or air conditioning. The air mysteriously was turned off in the middle of the night (making it quite uncomfortable) by someone who "wasn't supposed to turn it off", for which they apologized, but .... The grout on the tile floor was dirty. We didn't feel comfortable going barefooted. There was no shampoo, hair drier, etc., but that could easily have been overlooked had the place been clean, etc. The towels were the smallest, thinnest towels we have ever seen in a hotel. My husband said the help there looked like they were being paid 'under the table", but who knows? The place has amazing possibilities and could easily be turned into a first-rate place with some TLC, some paint, and some soap. It would take some cash, but it would be worth it for such an architecturally beautiful place. Again, the grounds are beautiful, so it looks good from the street, but that's where it stops.