Torquay's Finest...
On a geology field trip to Devon & Cornwall during my 2nd year of college, we stayed at some grotty hotel near the town centre.

There was a 50/50 split of boys and girls, and we were given 3 rooms between us. I ended up down in the basement next to the indoor swimming pool with some of the other girls.

Now we don't think anyone had stayed in our room for months. There was wallpaper hanging off the walls in the bedroom, the ceiling above the shower was covered in mould and all you could smell was sweaty feet and chlorine. We were all on half board as well, and the food resembled the reheated contents of a baby's nappy.

To top it all off, one night after a trip to the offy, 4 of us are returning with the lecturer's Guinness and a mountain of booze when we get accosted by the 'entertainment'. A fat bloke in his 50s who couldn't sing or play the piano he was sat at, trying to do his best impression of Elvis. Right in the middle of the lobby. The OAPs gathered round thought he was the best thing since sliced bread and were even doing some form of shuffling that at their age must have counted as dancing.

I can't remember the name of it now - all I can remember was the close proximity to a Threshers & there was about a 5 minute walk into the centre past a supposed night club and a McDonalds.
(Prawn, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 14:08, 4 replies)

France.
Wife and I stayed in a place that had brown carpet going about 4ft up the walls.

They even hoovered it (you could see the tramlines!.

Not horrible, just odd.
( Blackdogmanguitar is out with Fat Larry's Jazz Band on, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:58, Reply)

HMP Highpoint
Just crap.
(jmaxi returned again on, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:50, 4 replies)

Prague hotel
Another of my Inter-Rail stories. There may be more later.

Summer 1991. A year or so after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia. We turned up in Prague, and made our way to the youth hostel, which was on the outskirts of the city. In an area which resembled the Jasmine Allen estate on The Bill, only less upmarket. We went in, and were told that despite our having booked it, the hostel was full up and we couldn't stay there. But they would put us up in a hotel instead, for the same cost (i.e. bugger all squared)

"Result!", we thought. After weeks of living in overcrowded, sweaty youth hostels. A hotel. With proper beds, and showers where you weren't in close proximity to someone else's soaped willy while engaged in personal ablutions.

So we got into the hostel manager's Skoda as requested, and he came down to drive us to the hotel. But when he got in, he announced a change of plan. Rather than driving us to a hotel, there was one just behind the hostel which had rooms spare. So out we got again, and humped our rucksacks round to the back of the hostel (which itself was a large concrete edifice) to see an almost cubic concrete building with windows, maybe 10 storeys high by ten rooms wide and long. Struggling through the long grass to the door, we chanced upon a playful kitten, which brightened up our day a bit, and then entered the 'hotel'. We checked into our rooms, which were admittedly quite clean, but the shower was a little alcove by the door partioned from the rest of the room by a fabric curtain. And the toilets were down the hall.

I stripped off, and turned on the shower. It must have run for 5 minutes before I dared to get in. Not that the water wasn't warm, but it looked like the washoff from an iron ore mine. Eventually it was fine though. The toilet block wasn't so good though. The flush for the urinals not only washed the piss pots themselves, but also the floor below. There was no paper in the stalls. You had to bring it from your bedroom. I discovered this the hard way.

There was what appeared to be a radio in the room. In fact, it was a loudspeaker wired to the wall, which had a volume control and no off switch. So you could turn it down to a really low level, but not off completely. Ever read 1984? It only broadcast one voice channel, which we imagined was reading out the fish catches from the Caspian Sea or something.

We of course spent most of our time in central Prague, with the tourists, but had to make our way out to the concrete blockhouse every night. And when we came out the second day, the kitten we'd seen the day before was lying dead.

I have been back to Prague a few times since, and enjoyed it, but this was the only time I've seen its underbelly.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:47, Reply)

Bournemouth
A few years ago, myself and two friends went on holiday to Bournemouth. The landlady of the hotel seemed nice enough and showed us to our rooms. During the night, however, we could hear quite a bit of shouting from somewhere in the hotel.

The next day, I went out for a walk and what appeared to be a drunken tramp shouts something at me from down the street as I was leaving. As is usually wise, I chose not to turn around to a drunken shout of "Oy!", but instead I walked faster in the opposite direction and hoped that he'd ignore me.

However, the tramp ran after me and wrestled me to the floor.

The tramp then accused me of burgling his house.

It was only then that I realised that it wasn't a friendly old tramp at all, but rather the alcoholic wife beating husband of the woman who had showed us to our rooms.

Somewhere in his brain, he mustn't have realised that it was a hotel where he lived, but thought it was just his house.

The next day, he got his wife to appologise on his behalf. Like he seemed to get her to do everything for him. The twat.
( monkeon schmonkeon, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:39, Reply)

St Kilda, Melbourne
After a month or two exploring the gorgeous deserted beauty of South Island, New Zealand I and my slightly poorly GF flew into Melbourne. Arriving at 2am back into the filthy, polluted (relative to pristine NZ) car choked bustling urban environment was a bit of a culture shock. All we wanted to do was get to the hotel, shower and sleep. As we were arriving in the middle of the night I had booked a modest dirt cheap but not the cheapest hotel based on the Lonely Planet reviews in the lively, "former" red light district of St Kilda.

After finally locating the hotel (the taxi drove past it twice as it looked derelict) we wearily entered. It appeared to have gone downhill somewhat since the lonely planet reviewed it (probably in about 1979). The smell of damp was overpowering as the night porter stared at me blankly through pin prick pupils for a few seconds, before his comfortably numb brain seemed to drift into gear - "Yip, we've got a room, how long do you want it for and pay up front!". I decided that reminding him that I had 'phoned through my credit card details was a bad idea and after parting with thirty bicks me and the missus (of the time) carried our humungous rucksacks up threadbare stairs and along endless dim Scooby Doo corridors.

Then we got to the room.

The window was open, but hadn’t dispersed the “musty” miasma, there was a square of red carpet on the floor and in the breeze fluttered a thin sheet by way of a curtain. The sheet was decorated with hearts and funky Comic Sans slogans like "spank me", "kiss me", "Oh!" etc., all glaringly backlit by the streetlight directly outside. A battered brass bed dominated the room. We didn’t dare look for stains – we slept in our sleeping bags! We were gone the next morning to the YHA which was lovely. Apparently my GF had been kept awake all night by strange noises and the fear of nocturnal visitations.

I slept like a log ;o)
(jmaxi returned again on, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:39, 4 replies)

Iain's house - Bolton 1993.
I have a great many posts about the summer of 1993, a milestone in my life as I had just finished my A Level exams and was enjoying the long and boozy sabbatical before starting uni in late September. Three months of never ending summer holidays filled with teenage parties and acts of minor debauchery that I'll never forget. To the story:

My best friend's older brother Iain was living and working in Bolton, Lancashire. We decided that we'd invite ourselves up for a long weekend to see him and treat ourselves to a night of northern hospitality.

A four hour road trip in a superannuated Ford Orion fitted with the cheapest, noisiest tyres my mate could possibly buy (Stowmills, with treads half an inch deep which resonated the car with a steady "rwaarrrrrrrr" noise at motorway speeds and must have halved our miles per gallon) accompanied by the beats of The KLF (The White Room is even now compulsory for any long roadtrip I undertake), 808 State, Sunscreem, Tears for Fears, Fortran 5, Queen, Elton John and "Now Thats What I Call Rave Dance Energy Tip vol 12".

We were travelling far from home, despite me having spent nine months in Cape Town, the road trip to Bolton held the glamour of a weekend in Monte Carlo for us. Eagerly we drove into the evening watching the sunset being chased toward the horizon by the marching lavender coloured sky as we played a game of "wanker" on the M6, gesticulating at every BMW we saw. Such sons of fun were prepared to make the very best of whatever life in a northern town could throw at us. Bring it on.

We neared Iain's house as the sun was setting. Unperturbed by the rusting front gates with chipping glosswork and the common sight of a saloon car on bricks by the side of the road, we imagined ourselves driving through Beirut in 1982. In actual fact, it was probably very much akin to driving through Beirut in 1982 with its broken streets and furtive activities amongst the shadows, except the locals there were too busy throwing stones at Israeli tanks to imbibe ridiculous amounts of cheap heroin. Unlike here.

Iain opened the gates for us. Clearly they had not been used for such a purpose in a long time, groaning under protest. Iain's front garden had not been attended to in years, with grass a foot long and a Volkswagen Beetle rusting away forlornly underneath a tarpaulin.

Several pairs of rat like beady eyes in the street darted toward the unfamiliar Orion. Even though Iain lived in a cul-de-sac, it was infested with the very worst kind of drug addled proto-chavs with a penchant for nicking your stereo and anything else which can be persuaded to move. The Orion was duly immobilized with two Krookloks and the removal of the Distributor lead. The stereo was pulled out and we walked into Iain's bachelor pad.

Lordy.

Iain's attitude to domestic maintenance was up there with Santa Claus's work ethic. The carpets were that awful crunchy nylon which is supposedly allergic to retaining dirt. Sat in the lounge was a beige/brown velour sofa. We were ushered upstairs to the spare room, where two single beds had been set aside. I dropped my holdall on the floor and sagged onto the bed, weary from the travelling.

"Owwwww fuck! Whathfugginellistha?" I kid you not; a rusty spring had freed itself from the mattress and was attempting to violate my right buttock.

My right toe kicked something which felt a lot like a sagging pile of magazines holding the bed up. It in fact turned out to be a sagging pile of magazines holding the bed up. Closer inspection revealed a stack of early 90s bongo magazines amongst the copies of VolksWorld.

I elected to kip on the sofa.

Hungry, Iain, my pal and I trudged to the local chinese chip shop. We past groups of scruffy teenagers milling around and avoiding eye contact with us. Glancing over our shoulders as we walked on we noticed they were taking some time to detour past Iain's house presumably to check if the Orion had anything worth nicking left on it.

When we returned from the chippy, where I'd had an unfortunate language problem ("Sah-VELL-Oyy!" I repeated, phonetically when prompted with "ahh. Sos-Ahge, yah?") We sat on the sofa whereupon I felt a small bump in the cushion. Reaching down I extracted a VDO oil pressure gauge from a Volkswagen Beetle.

"Oh, I wondered where that went!" replied Iain as he munched through his chips and gravy.

This house resembled something from the Young Ones. I half expected to be insulted by a Glaswegian Hamster ("see yurgh jimmeh") as I trotted to the bathroom and steeled myself for the inevitable bath six inches deep in muddy gloop with a bicycle lying in the bottom. In fact, the truth was only slightly less disturbing.

In front of the lav sat an engine halfway through a rebuild. Yes, instead of reading a newspaper during his periods of quiet contemplation, Iain would sit on the bog reconditioning the engine from a Volkswagen Beetle.

Shaking my head, I walked out of the bathroom. Even I was not prepared for the sight that greeted me next. Yes, Iain was indeed respraying the front and rear wings of a Volkswagen Beetle. In his bedroom. At one end he'd arranged sheets and newspaper to stop the carpet and wardrobes being covered in paint. He sprayed and slept in the same room, he must have been off his tits on the fumes.

None of this put me off enjoying the night out, particularly when Iain's attractive next door neighbour Samantha chaperoned us round the town and several of her similarly comely friends joined us for the evening soiree. A piss-cheap swagger round Bolton's own Ritzy's at roughly half the price of a club from home and we were having a great old evening. Sam and her friends were easy on the eye and even easier conversation.

I'd love to be able to conclude this story by telling you that I spent the night on an uncomfortable bed with knackered springs, a suspicion of livestock in the mattress while sleepily writhing to avoid health threatening violation by a rusty spring, sick from paint fumes and the smell of used engine oil and six inches away from a stack of stiff-leaved low rent grot magazines, listening carefully for the sound of ferrety smack-addled chavs trying to pry their way into our car but I won't. For this was the night endured by my friend and he could paint a far more horrific picture than I could.

I was in fact spending the night next door in a clean and comfortable bed, thoroughly enjoying warm, welcoming and fragrantly moist third base with one of Sam's lovely lady pals. I've been overdrawn at the Karma Bank ever since.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:19, 9 replies)

Not a bad hotel, just very very wrong.
Lads weekend, brighton. I'm with 4 guys, all who are shall we say, not elightened to alternative lifestyles. I enjoyed every second of the 2 nights we stayed there* just for the reactions on their face when they saw that the breakfast dining room walls were decorated with photos of cocks. It was priceless.

I didnt book the room, the guy who did really really didnt read the site very carefully.

www.amsterdam.uk.com/index.htm

Good hotel tho.

*hearing 2 blokes at it in the middle of the night was a little off putting. Had to stop my wank.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:12, 6 replies)

Queens Hotel
I'm starting to remember quite a few dodgy hotel stories now.

Queens Hotel in North London is always quite an experience. Exposed carpet tacks waiting to cut your feet during the night; exposed wiring on the lights; the cupboard in the downstairs room that opens to reveal the main electrical distribution point.

Still, it's not so bad really, as it's dirt cheap and in a reasonable part of London. Perfect for groups of drunken lads.

Last time we were there, my friend's disappearance into his room was followed by the kind of smashing glass sound you hear in a Tom & Jerry cartoon. We went rushing in to see what had happened, and apparently when he opened the window the glass fell out.

I have pictorial evidence of the experience here:

Lights
Electrics
The offending window
Broken glass

I can't wait until we stay there again!
(llama patrol, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:11, 1 reply)

Another Thailand related incident
On our last night in Bangkok, Deskbound and his lovely lady come back to their ‘quaint’ little room in the Sawadi Inn (just off Kho San) to find their clothes, bed, floor, in fact everything swarming with thousands of baby cockroaches.

Deskbound marches down to the reception, where the staff instantaneously forget they can speak fluent English. After much arm-waving and dodgy cockroach impressions, they decide the only course of action is not to move us, but to shove a can of bug spray in my arm to sort the problem out on our own.

So after fully fumigating the room (disappearing outside to gasp fresh air every ten seconds during the process), we go out to get plastered and drown our sorrows. Returning to the room much later, it’s like something from a Biblical plague with cockroach carcases scattered liberally, sporting a thousand death grimaces.

We just swept them off the bed and slept on top of the covers. It was our last night and despite the horror show, Thailand was forking awesome.

Length? – About 5mm, brown and shiny.
(Deskbound You insignificant speck of dust, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:06, 1 reply)

Due to an ability to sleep anywhere
I have woken up:
- on a small trampoline curled up
- in a nest constructed from linolium
- numerous bushes
- on a mattressless bed, just on the struts
- York trainstation (the nicer of 2 train stations ive found myself in
- Dunbar trainstation (basically a platform, no benches)
- More bushes
- the other side of the country

accomodation was wonderful in each one, room service in none of them nor breakfast
(Joe Guevara is well known for stealing your biscuits, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:59, 1 reply)

Shanghai Pro's
Last year I spent the weekend in shanghai as i was working down the road in hangzhou. We booked in quite a respectful hotel right in the city centre.

On the last day we were all terribly hungover so my mate came up with the good idea of a massage... to which all the girls moaned and groaned - they knew china... they knew the dirtier side. Being the lovely and very modern hotel, I believed this wasn’t going to be the case. I made sure everyone knew my intentions were for a professional massage in the purist sense.

So we get led to the massage and aroma therapy suite in this hotel. I get given my own room, which had a lovely and very modern lazy boy chair, widescreen TV with F1 grandprix on, and a massage bed.

I am left to my own devices for about 10 minutes to relax. Then a young lady in a maid suit enters sits opposite me and says 'sessen handred'

hmm.. i think , what did she mean or want from me? she says it again before leaning over and writing it on a notepad... 700 RMB!! she was a pro!!... my friends were right. To which I politely say no.... she lowers the price to 600.. agian i decline. The only thing was stopping me was my conscience - my girly friends waiting in the bar would have known id had sex and would’ve ejected me from the group.

She stands up with a confused look on her face and walks out... I then hear some hushed talking in Chinese from behind the door... it stops, then a young man enters - in his best polite whispered English he says ' just massage? no sexy?' he says it in a manner of hushed surprise.

I nod and he leaves... the notion of 'does not compute' all over his face.

another 10 minutes pass and another - rougher looking lady walks in and tells me to get on the bed.

... this is where i get a little confused... so that i don’t confuse the staff on my intentions - i decide to leave my clothes on. This wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Having a full body massage with Jeans and a jumper isn’t really much fun... especially when they get to your arse cheeks and your wallet gets in the way.

Anyway.. i get back to the bar all my male friends are still getting 'massages' and after another 30 mintues it becomes obvious they were getting the extras i opted out on... all they got were some odd looks from the girls...

i should take more risks in life...

sorry about the length.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:53, 1 reply)

Wacken Festival
Few years agi I finally managed to save enough cash to get to Wacken fest. Being the dirty great metaler I am I was expecting great things.
A old friend who lives in germany was going too and had promised he could get us a room each for an extremely cheap price.
I get to Wakken and meet up and after a day of boozing, weed and loud music we head to the hotel he mentioned, apparently owned by " a friend of his dad's".
Get there and the place looks like a prison, broken glass cemented to the top of a 7ft wall all around the place. Front door is 3inch thick and made of steel.
The whole place is locked up tighter than a Nun's crotch and we never see any of the staff in person, everything is done behind screens and through microphones, constantly reminding me of all the WW2 movies I watched as a kid.
Spent the night on a cold, hard bed with what was literally a concrete mattress.
I get home and find out from said friend that the place used to be a Nazi compound for 'special' prisoners. And is jokingly referred to as 'der Hotel am besten Deutschland' which if I remember translates as "the best hotel in Germany".
This place has now acheived cult-status among friends & regulars who go to Wacken fest, the place is literally like living in a prison.
(Mr Torture Oh no! Not the BEEEEEEEEEEES!, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:52, 1 reply)

security shmecurity
I was doing some networking installation work for a charity in Brighton one week, and they put me and my partner in crime up in a hotel in said city. It was pretty naff, but acceptable.

Until one night I was woken up at 3am by some pissed blokes with pissed slappers in tow, who had opened my door because they had read the numbers wrong.

The next morning I thought about it, and was convinced I had locked my door. So I did a little testing, and sure enough, my key opened several doors on my floor, and possibly even every door in the hotel!
( Damocles wants no part of your debauchery, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:41, 5 replies)

Ukrainian 4star definitions
4 star may mean something else in Ukrainian. Possibly "You can only have hot water on the days that your room doesn't have the use of the bath plug" or "don't venture out of your room on Tuesday night because that's when the fat, sweaty (despite the lack of heating on Tuesdays)toupeed Americans come to the hotel to meet desperately poor pretty Ukrainian women for romantic liaisons leading to a visa, sorry long-term-relationship and those that aren't having their arses screwed off them are wandering in drunken packs tracking down western men in a hormone, vodka and desperation-fuelled frenzy".
I could be wrong.
Oh yes, the corridor lights didn't work on my floor so they took the bulbs from the floor below.
Happy days.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:40, Reply)

Inspired by Crackhouse's Kiev story...
St Petersburg, spring 1994. I don't have any particular story to tell: instead, I've just been reminded of the obvious Mafiosi (Mafioski?) in the lobby, the cards advertising prostitutes pushed under the door every couple of hours, and the guy who seemed to spend all day going up and down in the lift. With a snake around his neck.

Gangster capitalism, eh? Gotta love it.


Oh, yes: also, the Hotel Ismailovo in Moscow didn't take guests on the 13th floor because that had been the KGB floor. Very eerie.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:36, Reply)

Whitby Guesthouse
When I was a young slip of a lad(about 7 0r 8 years old) my parents decided that our family summer holiday should consist of travelling down the East coast of England. This included a stop in the in/famous fishing town of whitby. After searching in the wind and rain for a b&b we eventually stumbled on one. The owner was a weird looking woman who didnt look too disimilar to Hyasinth Boucet (spelling is shite, I know). She told us that us kiddies should not jump on the beds as in the dining room in the cellar there was a chandaleer. When we woke in the morning we rushed down 2 breakfast to discover that this chandaleer was actually a cut glass lampshade.
(badhabit85, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:27, Reply)

Pulling an Enzyme
There's a response to Kaol's story a couple of posts below this that mentions "pulling an Enzyme" - that is, booking yourself into a brothel.

I sincerely hope that "to pull an Enzyme" enters the vocabulary.

I'm also ashamed - and, simultaneously, a little proud - to admit that the story related on page 2 refers to the second time that I have slept in a brothel without realising it. The first time was on my first trip to Ecuador - the school one. I and my roommates emerged one morning in Cuenca to find the rest of the party packed and in the lobby.

"Hang on," we said. "We aren't leaving already, are we?"

Given that most of the people on the trip were of the female persuasion, an executive decision had been made as soon as the hourly occupancy of most rooms was noticed - in the small hours - that we would leave forthwith.




Pull an Enzyme.
*chuckles to self*
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:26, 1 reply)

Hotel Ukraina, Kiev
Amazing location in Independence Square, huge rooms with high ceilings, scary receptionists, old Soviet building. What they don't tell you about the Hotel Ukraina is the fact that in the evening the bar turns into a pole dancing strip club.

I was tired and went to bed. My friends did not. They got kicked out for not paying anymore money once the lovely ladies were already naked. Well, why would you, I suppose?

Allegedly the same ladies will perform a variety of interesting sex acts for a little bit more money. I'm hugely glad I missed all this but apparently the only thing seedier than watching some 19 stone guy getting laid by some drugged-up Eastern European women is hearing him boast about how he didn't have to wear a condom.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:23, 1 reply)

Globe Trotters Hostel, Glasgow
Back in the 90s when (hed)p.e. were good, they played The Garage on Sauchiehall Street. This sounded like a good laugh to two recently turned 18 blokes such as my mate and I, keen to do grown up debauched things. Another friend of mine recommended the amusingly titled Globe Trotters youth hostel as a cheap hovel to spend the night in. You don't just get a room though, it comes with a lecture too. From what he told me it went like this:

"You're welcome to use the kitchen and bathroom facilities, there's also a TV in the communal room. Come back late if you want as long as you're quiet but most importantly I have to insist that you don't take any drugs on the premises. So that's no drugs ok? We don't want any drug-taking going on in our hostel. Drugs are right out. No drugs."

"OK."

"Great then, any questions?"

"What about the drugs, is it alright to do drugs here?"

So I retold this story to the friend who'd come with me to Glasgow and we were looking forward to a similarly weird welcome. We got something a bit different though. We knocked on the door and waited a minute. It creaked open a few inches and some old, east european sounding woman scowled at us with beady eyes. She looked a bit like one of Papa Lazarou's wives.

"Yes!"

"Erm, is this, I mean, this is the Globe Trotters youth hostel?"

"Yeeeesssss."

"We're looking for a room for the night."

* pause *

"You from Glasgow!"

"No, we've come from Fife."

* silence as she looks us up and down *

"Where are your bags!?"

We both turn slightly to show our small shoulder sports bags.

"We, erm, only want to stay one night so we *mumble* don't have much stuff"

* uncomfortable silence *

"And you NOT from Glasgow!?"

"No."

* one last pause to really get us worried *

"Good, gooooood. Come in."

Once inside, someone else sorted us out with a room and gave us the tour (which included no mention of the drugs restrictions). We were still too scared to go back there too sober but everything was fine.

Yay for hed(p.e.) and Jedi Nights, the Star Wars theme pub.
( djtrialprice, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:12, 1 reply)

Peterborough Dream
Don't go to Peterborough. There is nothing to do there. And if you must go, don't stay in the anchor lodge hotel.

As mentioned here i am no longer allowed to book accomodation for family trips. This means that my mother booked this hotel for a family event.

We arrived at the 'hotel'with a deep sense of foreboding, as the taxi driver said 'ooh, I wouldn't stay here!', chuckled, then sped off. Oh well. We picked our way through the exceptionally sinister garden gnomes that littered to front of the property, and knocked on the front door. No response. We knocked again. Waited. Nothing. On the third knock, the door was flung open by a very odd little man. He had a chinstrap beard and brillo pad hair, all of which were dyed bright orange, and he was wearing a floorlength anorak. And he smelled overwhelmingly of peanuts.

He grudgingly let us in, and showed us our rooms. Room 1 had a sagging double bed, mould on the curtains, and a suspicious stain on the bed. room 2 had a broken mirror, broken shower, and no lightbulbs, room 3 had a broken window and no curtains, plus suspect stains, and room 4 had no lightbulbs and a broken lock on the door. Before we could complain, he disappeared, and we didn't see him again that day.

Following the excitement of my aunt's birthday party, we slept badly in the anchor lodge, before arising at 8 am to have the included cooked breakfast, and then my parents and siblings would drive back to glasgow, and my boyfriend and i would get the train back south.

I braved the kitchen. Not a soul about. Knocked on the door and all the walls. nothing. then the same bloke arrived through a hidden panel in the wall, dressed the same way as the day before.

I asked him about breakfast and he said 'I am not the owner, the owner is not here, and i do not cook.' We were invited to cook our own breakfast (and wonder where the owners were?!), whereupon my father (an eminant professor) lost his temper in a big way.

He and scary bloke proceeded to have a fist fight, with dad aided by my sisters fiance (yes, 2 against 1, but academics are feeble folk, so it was not a big probelm for scary bloke!). my boyfriend and brother just looked on aghast. Once we'd pulled the men apart, the strange peanut man disappeared again, we all packed, and left, slamming doors behind us. One door fell of its hinges. We never paid for our stay, and never heard from the owners.

mum is now not allowed to book accomodation for family trips either.
( ascorbate, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:11, Reply)

Let yourself in
I was away working over new year in Sleaford, Lincs and was booked into a fairly decent hotel in the town for the night of 1-Jan.

When I arrived after work, the place seemed pretty dark, but the front door opened when I tried it. The reception was dimly lit and un-manned but on the reception desk was an envelope addressed to 'Mr. Linbox'. Inside was a short letter explaining that they should never have accepted the booking as the hotel was closed on 1-Jan, but having realised their mistake too late to let me know, they enclosed the room key and asked if I could please lock the front door before going to bed...

No bar, no food, no nothing. Didn't get a wink of sleep knowing that the only person in the entire place was me!

PS: TripAdvisor is your friend...
( Linbox has a serious dunk habit, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 12:10, Reply)

Blackpool.
Stayed in a dodgy B&B in Blackpool.

If memory serves me right, it was called the 'Pegasus Hotel'

It was utter crap.

The sink in our room had a live wire running under it, poking out of the carpet, and the insides were exposed. The sink was leaky aswell. So every few hours there was a huge bang and a flash. Lovely nights kip.

The lock on the door failed to work at all, so we ended up wedging a chair under the door handle to keep out weirdos.

Good breakfast though!
(Xstopher, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 11:59, Reply)

Worried...
Damn it, of all the QOTW's, this had to be the one to appear just after I've booked a week in a reasonably priced hotel in Prague.

On the plus side, I'm now fully prepared for the worst, I'll be packing disinfectant, my own sheets and towels, a full kit of antibiotics, a padlock and some kind of firearm.

Thanks for turning me into a paranoid young man b3ta, thanks a fucking lot!
( Cawl, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 11:58, 5 replies)

I shudder when I think about this...
...especially as the person involved can actually switch on a computer and worse, is probably stalking me and reading this.

Met guy when drunk. Friend of friend of friend. Bit younger than me. Decided to meet up with him a couple of weeks later. Thought it'd be okay as he lived with his mum. Turns out his mum had abandoned him and his 16 year old brother in what can only be described as complete squalor while she moved to Wales to be with her new bloke.

The house... the house was literally shin-deep in crud. It would have taken a shovel and/or a digger to shift it out by the barrow load. The smell... oh dear god the smell... you couldn't put your foot down as there was no surface, just dirt, rubbish and objects. Environmental Health officers would weep. Coyotes would refuse to go near it. It was like wading through a landfill site. And it was so damp it was practically raining indoors.

I had to stay there as I didn't have a bus ticket 'til the next day and I'm too polite to actually complain. I refused to take off my clothes (unusual for me) and I lay down to try to sleep and opened my eyes to find his 16 year old brother watching me. I tried not to boke as I crunched my way to the bathroom to pee.

I wish there was a happy ending; there isn't. On the way to the bus station the next day he told me he had a gun and had shot someone. I called him a stupid fucker and legged it to the bus. He stalked me by text and email. The last I heard from him he told me his best female friend had been murdered in China in a martial art fight - hmmm, strange that when I googled it the only person ever with that name was a computer game character.

I remain, to this day, very, very scared.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 11:56, 3 replies)

FOF Alert...
This story takes place in the wilds of Befordshire. Crazy place. Crazy People.

None of these people were crazier than Alex (for that is name he is forced to go through life with).

Are any of your Fratelli's fans? You know that song 'Vince the loveable stoner'? "Vince was a stoner, loveable loner ah ha..."

Well, Alex was a stoner of the highest order.

To give this story some perspective, I was a first year at Uni and fell in with a great crowd of third years (for the sake of argument, we'll call them Jo, and Kerry + a few others). Well, this story takes place in THEIR first year- two years before I even thought about a UCAS application. Yes, the story is still brought up even to this day.

~~~~wavy lines~~~~

Jo, Kerry + a few others have gone for a night out to the Student Union. Ah those hedonistic days...nights. Shots for 50p, cheezy music. The kind of night that makes you glad you did some work during your A-levels and not stacking shelves in Tesco's.

The burly security guards have kicked everyone out of the SU. Keen to continue the partying, the girls decide to go back to Alexs'. However, disaster struck! Jo and Alex are walking ahead of the others, oblivious that they have gone into one of the many cheep chicken shops (see what I did there?) and somehow became seperated.

'Ah HA, not to worry' Thinks Jo (probably...) 'i'll continue to Alex's they know thats where we are heading, i'm sure they'll turn up'...and with that Jo and Alex continue to their halls.

~~~~more wavey lines~~~~#@a hash and an 'at sign' later

Alex slides the key into the lock of his room, opens the door, and turns the lights on. A red light and a neon light, the neon light would be for the weed plant he was growing. Well...I say plant, by all accounts it was a mahoosive tree.

Now an interesting thing about having a red light in your room is that should you bring a girl back (which to the casual viewer, it would seem) your hall-mates tend to play Roxanne by the wrinkly scotting rocker Rod Steward. None fucking stop.

Another interesting fact about red light bulbs is they tend to bathe the room with such a hue that you cannot tell what state the room your about to sleep in is like. That is until one of said hall mates open's the room door just before you've decided you want to go to sleep. And 'normal' light fills the room.

I'm struggling to descibe this next bit, so bear with me. I'll start with the condition of the floor.

It was filthy. I'm not talking about normal student flith (porn and pot noodles) i'm talking the floor seems to have several previously unidentified like forms on it.

The dirty washing was piled high. Oh wait, that's not the dirty washing, thats clean....

the usual student crap ( coke bottles, take aways etc...) seem to be supporting the several previously undiscovered life forms.

The sink seemed to have a toothbrush still in its wrapper. and no other fucking toothbrushes in sight (more on this in a bit!)

Then Jo notices the smell. The kind of smell that no human should ever have to smell, let alone live in. A mixture of chinese food, body odour, and sweat.

Jo tried very descreatly to ring her friends to come and get her (very sensible, there are weirdos out there) but they do not answer.

So jo knock's on Alex's neighbours door, and askes for a dressing gown to lay on the floor. She pays for the gown. She is desperate.

A few hours later, Jo is sleeping (or possibly knocked out by the smell, I cant be sure on that) and then she feels it. Something is moving in the room. Alex is a sleep. Its by her feet. With a shrill that would wake the dead, Jo jumps up and turns the light on.

To see a mouse.

On the fourth floor of student halls.

~~~~more wavy lines...all this time travel can make a boy hungry~~~~

A few years later, I meet alex through jo. And have already been told the above story. I thought Jo was being over dramtic. Oh My Fucking God.

A new room, same old smell. I'm gagging just remembering that smell. It clung to your clothes in the same way the smell of death seems to follow a pathologist.
Only Alex has a few more 'gems'

The toothbrush is now almost bristle-bare (possibly the original toothbrush from the above) Then uttered the immortal line " I find listerine is better than brushing..."...The red/neon light has gone...because Alex has discovered MDMA. Which meant you could no see the pit it all its unholy glory.

The one and only time he came up to my room (uninvited...) He had on my bed. I physically stripped the bed. Disinfected the matress (it was one of those placcy types ones) and brought myself a whole new bedroom set. No, that is not a lie, it cost £10 from Roseby's.

Length? about two years between the stories.
(drain_bamaged, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 11:43, 3 replies)

Christmas Slugs
Prelude
This didn’t happen to me but to my schoolfriend O. But it did happen at my parents’ house.

Act One
At around 3 am one Christmas Day in the mid-1990s, my mother heard something rustling in the garden, but thought nothing of it. At 6, the doorbell rang. O stood there, looking bedraggled. “I was wondering, Mrs Enzyme’s Mum, if you might have a spare bed?” he asked. O was always very polite, and I think my mother fancied him a bit. She took pity on him and let him in.

Act Two, Scene 1
My schoolfriends and I, having gone to various universities, used to make a point of going to the pub to see in Christmas Day. (Non-linear narrative ftw!) At the end of the evening, we dispersed. O realised that he was much too drunk to drive to his house several miles away, and was invited to crash at V’s house. O and V had been going out before university; they had finished with each other now, but were on reasonable terms. However, in the small hours, O misjudged just how reasonable those terms were, and ended up getting thrown out. Still drunk, but now bewildered, alone, and far from home, he needed a plan.

This plan involved walking to my house.

Act Two, Scene 2
My father, having gone through a phase of insulating the greenhouse, the kitchen, the study, and just about anything else that didn’t move, had a large roll of bubble-wrap in the greenhouse. O arrived at my house and found it dark and quiet; too polite to wake anyone at that point, but still needing somewhere to spend the night, he let himself into the back garden with the intention of sleeping under a rhododendron, and found the roll. The greenhouse was too cluttered to sleep, but, wrapped in bubble-wrap under the rhodo, he would be fine.

Anagnorisis
What forced O to bite the bullet and ring the doorbell was that, few hours later, it began to rain. He apparently hadn’t really minded the slugs with whom he shared his bivouac.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 11:41, 3 replies)

Caravan site of doom
Me and a few friends booked in at a camp/caravan site in Newquay. They put us in a van that can only be described as a slum, and the smell must have been what Father Jack's underpants hamper must have smelled like.
Complained and they put us in another one, which had been broken into by other 'guests' and they'd left half pints of beer around the place.

In the end we went back and threw a fit at them and they moved us to the nice end of the park where the families and biddies go.

COD1
COD2
COD3
COD4
COD5
(BobMonkhouse is a lacist, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 11:25, Reply)