We booked a non-smoking room with this motel and arrived late on Saturday shortly after midnight. We were checked in by the owner of the motel and it was relatively uneventful; we made some small talk about the recent storms in Mammoth, I paid, and I left. As soon as we got into our room, we noticed a lingering cigarette smell, but it was past midnight and we were exhausted from traveling. We were only staying here for two nights and we didn't plan on spending too much time in the room, so we didn't want to make a big deal as we thought we could put up with it.
The second day when we got back into the room after the heater was turned on around 7pm, the smell got significantly worse. Our eyes began to water and our throats started to get irritated; I started coughing and could not stop. We realized it was too late to get a refund with the motel, but it was becoming intolerable that we decided to go to the front desk and try to see if we could get a different room before just packing up to leave.
When we got to the front desk, a receptionist saw us but quickly went inside without talking to us, but she acknowledged us and gestured that she'd get back to us. We waited around outside for about 5 minutes in the cold, and nobody came back, so we pushed the button outside of the reception area to try to get someone's attention. A couple minutes passed and there was still no one; we decided to try the courtesy phone above the button. As soon as we picked up the phone, it connected us to the owner of the motel; we stated our intention to talk to them about the state of our room, and she said she would be there shortly.
Another 5-10 minutes passed, the owner showed up and started to act very confrontationally. Before either my boyfriend or I could say anything, she targeted me and said this would be a good "life lesson" to learn and speak up about things I don't like as soon as I know I don't like it, may it be a motel room, a job, a man, or whatever else and that I should write in my "little diary" so I can look back and cry about it later in life. She stated that she knew from my attitude at the time of check-in that I didn't like the motel, and that if I had said something, she would have given me a refund with no question asked. She told us the town was completely booked out for the night and we could leave if we didn't like the room. She also refused to believe the room reeked of cigarette smell and called us overly sensitive and that she didn't have the time to babysit every room and make sure nobody smoked in her motel.
Throughout this one-sided conversation, my eyes remained watery and I continued to cough from the smoke build-up in my body by being in the room for a limited amount of time. I tried to tell her politely that I believed she was mistakened and I didn't have any issue or attitude with her motel at the time of check-in, which she aggressively rejected. I told her it was late when we arrived and we thought we could put up with it, but we were wrong. She once again rudely and angrily interrupted and yelled at us. I tried to tell her she could have at least acknowledged the room smelled like cigarettes and relabeled it as a smoking room, to which she responded she doesn't own any smoking rooms and there was nothing we should complain about given the price of the motel, as it's not Hyatt and that we could stay at Days Inn next door at a $200/night if we wanted luxury.
At this point, despite in utter shock still, we realized there was no point in continuing this conversation. I interjected and told her that all we wanted was to see if she would do anything about our situation because the smell was genuinely bothering us, more than we had thought or realized; if the answer to that question is nothing, it is what it is and we will leave, but we don't need her to lecture us. As we walked away, she slammed the door shut and started screaming in the room to at least two othe men who were present the entire time in racial slurs about me, a Chinese descent, but nothing about my white boyfriend. We got back to our room and started to pack up, still in disbelieve, and left the motel as soon as we could.
Now, we understand if she got defensive with us because she felt like we were trying to rip her off as she appeared to have formed some impressions about us prior to even talking to us, but she clearly had some issues with me, and only me, as she was very vicious with me throughout the entire interaction. Despite some obvious holes in her argument (Why wouldn't anyone know about the state of their own mom-and-pop motel? Not to mention, it's a small motel and it's not like it has 5 different buildings and over a hundred rooms), I remained courteous as she combatively continued to verbally assault me. It was baffling to us why she was so angry and continued to get angrier throughout the conversation. Her reaction was so far out there, and it was completely uncalled for, offensive, and unprofessional. read more