A Sad Depiction Of Eviction

(I work second shift front desk at an extended stay [Brand] hotel. Of 140+ rooms we have only a couple of two bedroom suites, the largest of our [Brand]’s suites.)

Caller: “Are you owned or managed by [Some Company]?”

Me: “No we are owned by [Company #1] and managed by [Company #2].”

(I never get asked this.)

Caller: “I’m interesting in seeing the two bedroom suite.”

Me: “Sure, if you can come by tomorrow I can have someone show you the room.”

Caller: “Could I see it tonight? I want to stay for three months. I’ll have [Related Brand] hotel shuttle drop me off.”

Me: “The room hasn’t been cleaned yet…”

Caller: “That is okay.”

(It being a Sunday night with only a few check-ins left, I figure it would be okay if I took 15 minutes to land a three-month stay in our most expensive room.)

Me: “Great, I’ll show you the room when you arrive.”

(The shuttle drops them off.)

Me: “Welcome to [Hotel].”

Caller: “You aren’t owned or operated by [Company #3], are you?”

Me: “Nope!”

(I’m getting a bit worried about this; nobody asks this question or is so interested. I show them the room and they tell me about how they need more chairs, a desk for their son, etc. They come across as very needy. This does not bode well.)

Caller: “We will be living here until our house is ready, and we will need to use the van to pick up our son from school and to do errands.”

(Red flag: They have a house under construction but they don’t own a car!)

Me: “For all these things especially the extra furniture and preferential van scheduling will need management approval.”

Caller: “Okay, let’s book this and your manager can get back to us.”

Me: “Great, I just need a [Loyalty Card] number and a credit card.”

Caller: “Okay here is the [Loyalty Card] number and let me read you the CC number.”

(With confirmation number in hand they called Related Brand hotel and got the shuttle back. At this point I checked their Loyalty Card history. They had been in two hotels for 12 months. I wanted to know why they are changing hotels and what is going on and what they aren’t telling me. I left a note for my manager to call Related Brand hotel and find out why they are leaving. My manager called the other hotel. No sooner did she say the guest’s name, the other manager burst into tears. In New Jersey, if you live in a hotel long enough, you are entitled to protection under the eviction laws. That means the hotel has to take you to court if you haven’t paid your bill. For the first 60 days they paid on time and in full but as soon as the eviction rules kicked in they stopped paying. As a result the hotel had impounded their car. The hotel, having had them evicted, was in the process of extracting money owed for the room, totalling something like $80k. The family was also being investigated by the FBI for committing wire fraud from the hotel’s business center. Naturally my manager cancelled their reservation and I got a $20 gift card to Olive Garden for saving us tens of thousands of dollars of pain. If they hadn’t been so d*** needy we wouldn’t have known until it was too late!)