Bed bugs and terrible customer service.
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 10/22/10
My friend and I checked into Whiskey Pete's on Friday, October 15, 2010 at about 4:30 PM. We were assigned to room #110 right near the registration desk. We were in town for the AKC dog show and Whiskey Pete's was listed as the "host hotel". We unpacked all of our belongings (as well as our 4 show dogs) and went to dinner. When we got ready for bed, I noticed a bug on the sheet of my bed - I took a tissue to remove the bug and it exploded blood on the sheet. I was disgusted, but didn't think much more about it. About 10 minutes later, I noticed another, much smaller bug on the pillow - when I removed this one, it also left a small speck of blood on the pillow. Upon further investigation, we saw about 4 more of the bugs on the wall behind the bed. We immediately called the front desk and asked that someone come to our room to examine the bugs. After a 10 minute wait, I grew impatient and took one of the bugs in a tissue to the front desk. I spoke with Seth who was the supervisor on duty. He looked at the bug and said that he would move us to another room (room #4001). At that same time, my friend had stayed back in the room and continued to find more bugs near my bed -- a total of about 20 were counted by her. A lady from housekeeping came into the room and verified the bugs to my friend and called them in on the radio to Seth while I was standing at the front desk.
We were given the key to room 4001 -- this was now about 11:45 pm and they did not offer to help us move, nor even offer a bell cart to help with the move. The next day, both my friend and I noticed a few possible bites on our legs and stomach, and since we were very dissatisfied with the way the situation was handled -- we also filed a report with their risk management department the next day -- the gentlemen from that department were very sympathetic and took photos of the bites on my legs and the bite on my friend's stomach -- they said we could call back to check on the status of the report. After several conversations with Seth, he finally agreed to not charge us for one of our night's stays...but he refused to credit us the other night.
I have since called several times to follow up on the report and was told today by Paula in risk management that there were no bugs in the room. This is a complete lie, as two of their employees verified the bugs that first night that we were there. I have had to purchase a new suitcase and have spent several hours washing and drying everything that I took on that trip. Needless to say, I will never be returning to that hotel again...and I would like others to know of my experience...the fact that there were bed bugs was terrible, but their lack of customer service just escalates the situation.