We recently checked out after our stay at The Hampton Inn, Augusta West. The ladies at the front desk were extremely helpful, professional and friendly, helping with whatever they could. This has been the case of all hotel employees I came in contact with.

We checked into room 322 on a Friday night around 9-9:30. I have a feeling they may have received complaints about his room before. Sometimes when you check into a room, it may not be cleaned as well as it should be, bulbs may be burned out, etc… little things can be overlooked or fixed easily. This is what I first noticed…
- Several cup ring stains all over the dresser and desk area
- Right bedside bulb burnt out
- A lot of light coming in around curtains when lights are off
All being an easy fixes & or an inconvenience

- Freezer iced over (2nd room- we aren’t able to use the freezer in the new room as it is filled with ice. We’re out in the sun all weekend for a sports tournament, in August, and have to settle for putting the ice packs for the cooler in the fridge instead.)

As I was unpacking and and getting ready bed, my son fell asleep. I had my AirPods in for most of that time. Around 10:45pm, I was ready to get into bed. I took my AirPods out and noticed that the faucet in the bathtub was dripping. I tried to turn it off but it was already all the way off. (I was forced to continue to listen to the dripping all night.) As I was trying to turn the water off, I noticed a good amount of mold along the side of the bathtub. Two things that would definitely need to be fixed -I have a mold allergy- but they would have to wait until the morning. It was late and my son was already sleeping.

- Dripping tub
- Mold

Then, kicker #1… I use to travel heavily for work and I am vigilant about hotel safety. I noticed that the door lock latch wasn’t locked. I’m SURE I locked it. So, I locked it again. Walked by again, unlocked. The latch pops out and will not stay locked. There was also a screw missing from the base holding the latch piece to the wall.

- Lock latch does not stay lock

After turning the room lights off, I noticed the other really big ticket item… there is a significant gap between the door and doorframe. This was an issue for multiple reasons. It took away from some of the sound proofing in the room so ALL hallway noises were amplified all night. There was no tension so the door rattled when any door near by shook, a wall was hit, people walked by, etc… all night. It did so loudly as if someone was coming in the room. This accompanied with no latch, I think you can imagine how my night went, being alone in the room with my 12 year old son. I didn’t feel safe but couldn’t leave in the middle of the night. (We rode there from a few hours away with my elderly parents, who are also staying in the hotel. In order to leave and go somewhere else I would have had to also wake them up. We were also told that the hotel was sold out, as were most others in the area. You can see how my options were not expansive.)

The biggest issue with the door gap- I could be wrong but, I believe a “minimum air flow” is the standard IFC regulation and this gap would definitely exceed that. The maintenance employee agreed that the door is definitely messed up and could not be fixed when I asked about it first thing in the morning. I was told there was now a room across the hall an available and asked if I could switch rooms earlier in the day so it could be available for someone else. That was not something I could do.

- Significant gap in entryway door

On top of all that, the whole 3rd floor and at least one elevator had a heavy weed smell. I heard other areas did as well but I was just too tired to go see for myself. Frustrating in a non-smoking hotel, with a huge group of young kids staying here. The lady at the front desk was kind enough to spray Lysol but the pot was still a heavy smell. (And, again as we came back to shower after our morning game on Sunday. I didn’t even bother saying anything at that point. As we left, we could smell Lysol again so someone else must have complained.) Other people on the team mentioned smelling cigarette smoke as well. Again, major fire hazard. (Fabulous for the people with a door that doesn’t seem to be fire-coded!)

- Pot/cigarettes

My room for the second night was across the hall (319), and also has a significant door gap. It is not as large as the other one though. If there was a fire, there would have been very little opportunity to block off the vertical gap from smoke or flames. Again, I feel like this is a huge safety issue!

To top allllllll of this off, the front desk employee offered to leave a note for the General Manager (Ms. Tiffany Reed) to call me and to notate my file, stating she would definitely see them. They stated she was at a conference so I should give her a few days. I then emailed her a detailed account of my concerns during our stay, along with pictures and videos, and asked her to call me as soon as possible. I followed up multiple times over the course of the past week and a half, by phone, email and third parties trying to contact her. I contacted Hilton Honors by email and phone multiple times as well. They also tried to contact someone at the hotel to help me. Hilton Honors keeps saying they can’t assist me and I just have to contact the hotel. When I point out that I have been and not even the people at Hilton Honors can get in touch with them, I’m told “sorry, you have to contact them.”

A week and a half with no call back about entryway doors that aren’t fire-coded and don’t lock?!?! How many other people are they willing to put at risk while hoping I stop calling?

*I am not the type of person to be rude- I’ve been told by multiple people that I’ve spoken with from Hotels.com and Hilton Honors that I’ve been very kind about all of this. This is not a case of me calling and screaming at people. At this point, I believe a full refund is warranted as well as an answer to the question I keep asking…. WHAT WILL BE DONE TO KEEP HOTELS GUESTS SAFE??? I’ve gotten no response from the hotel at all but I will continue to move forward with my concerns. I can’t add videos but I’ll get screen grabs of the videos to post.

Checked in after taking over 45 minutes to find a parking spot had to park next door at a different hotel went up to our room and the smell was horrible smelled like urine when calling the front desk we were told “what can we do about it” if we knew we wouldn’t have been charged for the room we would have left and found another place to stay we left the next morning and got a wonderful hotel people outside acting like zombies so thankful our vehicle wasn’t broken into