American Inn and Suites Ionia

Lobby and check in area are clean. The girl at the desk was friendly. The side doors to the building are NOT locked. The musty, dirty smell hits you as soon as you walk in the UNLOCKED outside door to go to your room. Hallway dirty, dank with garbage odor. Stacks of old dirty mattresses piled by the stairway. Once we got in our room the odor was even worse. Smelled of BO, cigarettes and old beer. Floors had old cigarette burns in the carpet even though she told us it was a no smoking facility at check in. We were on the first floor and the windows do NOT lock. We had NO other options for places to stay, other than sleeping in the car. We went to the store, got cleaning supplies and fabreeze and cleaned the room ourselves. Peeled the bedspread back and luckily the sheets seemed clean. Towels were dusty, like they'd been hanging for years. Furniture was old and beat up like it had been taken out of someone's garbage. TV was tiny and old. Coffee maker was too old and dirty to even think of using. Fridge worked. Didn't touch or look in the old microwave. NO INTERNET OR WIFI. They offered continental breakfast in an empty hotel room, not even in a public space, the room was in an area of the hotel that smelled like dead bodies. We didn't partake. There is a pool and hot tub but our son-in-law (who also had to stay there) said don't go near them. The deadbolt on our door did NOT work, there was a chain. Unless you're out of options, like we were, try to find someplace else to stay.

We stayed in room 110 for a relative's wedding nearby and this was the only hotel option available. It's an older, outdated hotel (looked like artwork was missing off the wall, one light switch didn't work, the door was difficult to open), but the kids liked the pool and the options were slim, but breakfast was offered, so we didn't worry about it - especially for just a weekend stay. However, we woke up on Sunday morning with some red bug bites. I didn't think much of it as we were packing up the kids and leaving for a 7-hour drive home. As we were driving, a few more itchy red spots showed up and I started googling it and it was an exact match for bed bug bites. To top it off, my husband said he killed a bug he found on the pillow, but didn't make a big issue out of it - we're at an old hotel, definitely cosmetic issues, and he didn't think a little bug was a big deal - until he looked at my google search and realized what it was! Definitely not happy to have paid more than I thought the room was worth for an old hotel to stay in a bug infested room with my kids, including a 10-mo. baby, and then have to deal with cleaning all the clothes, luggage, etc., not to mention the car, after a long drive home. I just wish we had realized what it was before we left the hotel, but we had never experienced that before and just didn't expect it!