Smells like something died in there!
Our stay at the White Springs Manor (WSM) as wedding guests at Belhurst Castle in Geneva, NY in August 2008 was a disaster. The front desk staff was rude and defensive from the moment of check-in. The old, crumbling, unattended "manor" building was dated, dirty, dusty, spattered, and smelly. The housekeeping staff seemed oblivious to the piles of dirty linen,, plastic trash bags, Pringle cans and McDonald's bags lining the foyer, stairway, and hallway as we arrived after check-in time. The lock on our door had been compromised, giving us security concerns. In our second floor, victorian style "romantic" room, housekeeping had failed to clean the volume of bodily fluids from the carpeting and upholstered chairs. After we requested a room change and awaited for housekeeping to clean a first floor room, we couldn't help but notice a strong, sickening odor. Clearly, the housekeeping staff was aware of the problem because they handed us a bottle of Fabrize with instructions to spray the room again, as needed. The first night, while breathing through the sheets in our attempt to mask the strong odor, we heard loud scurrying noises. An animal(s) had entered the building and ran along the air conditioning ductwork below the floor throughout the night. In the morning, we noticed grass and other nesting materials in the floor vent beside the bed. A walk around the outside of the building led us to find several baited rat traps. When we confronted the front desk about these issues, the response was to ask, "What do you expect, you're out in the middle of nowhere?" When we announced that we intended to cancel our third night's stay and leave a day early, the accommodations supervisor reminded us that Belhurst has a 7-day cancellation policy. Only after considerable discussion, did he offer to deduct the third $200+/night charge. A very pleasant workman was sent out to WSM with a long-handled net to "eliminate the problem." He had seen some feathers in the fireplace hearth and suspected we had a bird nesting in the chimney, but we told him that the sounds we heard were not flapping sounds; they were scurrying sounds below the floor. No other hotel rooms were available in Geneva so we were stuck wasting our vacation time dealing with hopeless room issues. We couldn't sleep, and we couldn't wait to get out of there. Our 1,500 mile round trip drive to atttend a wedding and spend a getaway weekend in beautiful NY State wine country was a nightmare. We have to wonder what the health department in Geneva, NY is doing?