Travelodge apologyover ‘disgusting’ mattress
A COUPLE visiting Cardiff were left horrified when they found their hotel room mattress was covered in stains and “bodily fluids”.
Martin Rogers arrived in the city on Friday night ahead of Saturday’s Wales v Australia rugby match, having paid nearly £100 to stay at the Travelodge in Queen Street.
When checking in, Martin didn’t notice anything wrong with the room initially other than a “funny, pungent smell”.
But he discovered what he described as an “absolutely disgusting” find.
He said: “At first we didn’t think much of it but when we got back in late at night, I noticed the smell was still there.
“I had a look to see where the smell was coming from.
“I looked under the bed and then obviously couldn’t see anything.
“I just looked at the mattress on top of the bed and it had all white dust hairs, and there was what looked like a dead bedbug on it.
“I took the sheets off the top and the stains were unbelievable.
“I could see the blue stains from where they tried to clean it. I honestly don’t know what it is and wouldn’t even like to say.
“There was all sorts of different colours there – it was absolutely disgusting.
“In the middle of a Covid pandemic, that should not be allowed.”
Martin, from Wrexham, went downstairs to reception to complain but was told no other rooms were available, even in other Travelodges around Cardiff.
“It was 10 or 11 o’clock in the night. They said we could speak to the manager in the morning. They gave us two extra bed sheets to put on top of the bed.
“I don’t usually go around checking the mattress in the hotel rooms but there was that funny smell coming from the room so we looked.”
Martin says he spoke to the manager the next morning, who said he would give the couple a full refund – but they initially received no refund, email or apology until after they had spoken to us.
He added: “I wanted to point it out in case it’s happened to other people. They would have charged £250 to stay at the Saturday night – I’m glad we decided to only stay for the Friday night.”
Martin was disappointed with the way staff handled the complaint.
He said: “They didn’t have any mattresses on site or anything to change it.
“The sink in our room was blocked too which we mentioned in the morning.
“I’m 62 and my wife is 50 – we’ve never come across anything like this before.”
Martin and his wife checked out that morning and decided to stay at a different hotel on St Mary Street for Saturday night.
A spokesperson for Travelodge said: “We are sincerely sorry that we did not deliver our normal high standard of service to Mr Rogers during his recent stay with us.
“We have apologised to Mr Rogers, refunded his booking and offered a twonight complimentary stay.
“We have also ensured that the team receives the appropriate retraining on our cleaning process and we have also replaced the mattress.”