On August 31st 2019, my 4 year old niece and I checked in to room 215 at the Lighthouse Resort located in Marblehead Ohio for a family weekend within the Lakeside community. We are lakehouse owners locally and have been frequenting this community for over 25 years. To be specific, I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and my niece lives in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Prior to our stay at your establishment we both stayed the previous 10 plus days within our separate residences up until August 31st, at which point we checked in to the Lighthouse Resort.
We had a pleasant stay; however, upon preparation for my checkout, I noticed visible bites appearing on my face, neck and arms. As the day progressed and I continued to research, I realized the bites were from bed bugs. I contacted the manager on duty at the Lighthouse Resort, who was less than friendly toward me and my concern. She indicated that she would be contacting a professional exterminator to investigate my concern further. I was not satisfied with this response so I returned to the hotel property to discuss further in person to ensure that my experience as the customer was being addressed with the utmost professionalism and respect. My in person visit resulted in her questioning my job title and credentials for identifying the bites that I had inherited from my stay at the Lighthouse Resort. She strongly suggested that I seek out a medical professional for a formal examination and diagnosis from someone from whom she deemed to have the proper credentials. At this point she indicated that upon the completion of this task as well as the professional exterminator review, she would discuss providing a refund to me, as I had requested, in the amount of 190.97 USD.
I complied with her recommendation and visited the Magruder Hospital-Urgent Care on 9/1/19 by the attending medical professional on site. The diagnosis provided to me was "bed bug bite". I was given a steroid at the office and prescribed anti-histamines for continued itching and discomfort.
Upon returning to the Lighthouse Resort on 9/2/19 to provide evidence of the recommended medical treatment by the resort staff. I requested a sit down meeting to discuss my treatment as well as my requests for remedy of the impact that this hotel stay has now had on my health and the health of my 4 year old niece. Initially, I was refused a sit down discussion with the indicated hotel owner and manager. I advised that I would wait at the premises until she had availability. She then went on to threaten to call the police on me, her customer, who was asking for assistance, if I continued to wait for her to be available to discuss this matter professionally. She refused to provide evidence of the extermination examination as well as refused to provide me with her name. At this point in time, the indicated hotel owner and manager told me that the police would be on their way to discuss this matter further. I informed her that I would wait patiently in the lobby for them to arrive. I then received guidance by the hotel desk receptionist to go to room 125 for a conversation. Upon entering room 125, the hotel office, the indicated hotel owner and manager was sitting in the dark at her desk and asked me to enter and sit down meeting. She paused for me to begin discussion and immediately upon starting to speak, she interrupted me multiple times. I asked her if she would like to speak first and have me listen instead. She indicated that she would. I sat there quietly and listened to her perspective. Upon finishing her statement, I began to share mine. It was at this point that she again interrupted me multiple times. I asked her politely to allow me to speak uninterrupted as I had just allowed her moments before. She told me she could "listen and talk at the same time" and then advised that I "only had 5 minutes starting now to say what I needed to say" and time stamped the conversation. The conversation ended with her emphatically stating that she would not be offering anything to remedy the situation and that if I didn't leave property she would call the police on me, the customer. She also threatened me that if I were to write poor customer reviews of their property online that she would seek legal action against me for "slander" and stated that "that is not something you want to mess with". I left the property promptly afterwards. Upon reviewing current and historic customer reviews on many reputable travel evaluation websites (such as TripAdvisor and Yelp) there is a pattern of reviews dating several years back that call out poor customer service, low say/do ratio, chronic cleanliness issues and a continued infestation of bugs, mosquitoes and black mold. Frankly, I started this journey simply wanting a refund for my one night stay but at this point, an investigation of this property's cleanliness, how it being managed and whether or not it should still be a public offering in it's current state is a necessity. read more