I booked myself into the Grapevine Hotel in Victoria for two nights. I'd heard through the grapevine (Tripadvisor) that it had bad reviews however most of the comments seemed to be about the size of the rooms and petty little things that I had become accustom to during my travels i.e. having to walk up stairs and not having daily maid service etc... My instinct based on experience and the price I paid was telling me that it was more like a 'hostel' than a 'hotel' so I was not expecting luxury standards. As long as it was safe and I had clean sheets I would be happy. And quite frankly Mr Shankly, I felt that anything would be an improvement on the shit stained sheets of my prior Harlem lodgings.
I arrived at The Grapevine an hour earlier than the designated check-in time. My room, which was in a separate building to reception, wasn't ready but they kindly gave me the key and let me take my luggage up to the room anyway. Sometimes I wish my physique was more like Fatima Whitbred than Fatty Arbuckle because having to walk up three flights of stairs with a 24kg suitcase in tow was no easy trek. Once I finally made it to my room on the top floor (with a complexion that looked like I had injected tomato colourant into my cheeks) the maid was in there still cleaning my room. She was really pleasant and welcoming trying to make me feel at ease leaving my luggage there. Now, having just spent 45 days in North America talking to any Tom, Dick and Cheney on subways, buses, trains, restaurants, bars, sidewalks etc... as that is what people do over there, I had become used to chatting to anybody and I suppose everybody in the most random of circumstances where in England you would be construed as a weirdo for even smiling in politeness. Admittedly offering to make the maid a cup of tea while she was working was perhaps taking this new found social awareness a step too far. Yeah you read that right, I offered to make the maid a cup of tea! As someone who has genuinely used the phrase 'Time to lean? Time to Clean' in their professional life even I was surprised at my generous offer which flowed from my lips as smooth as saying hello. We ended up having quite a nice chat actually. She was from Romania studying to be a dental technician and that was her last day working for the Grapevine Hotel. Making that conversation set me up for a good day. Little did I know twelve hours later I would be cursing her lazy half arsed routines.
Now I don't plan on writing about how I struggled to fit into the half square footed shower or how the water just flowed across the entire floor including the actual bedroom itself. I'm tempted to write a whole paragraph about the goings on of the dozens of pigeons outside my window but hearing them getting funky with each other is bad enough let alone writing about it too. And I'm not going to write too much about the stale breakfast items with ants crawling everywhere in the breakfast room. I'm going to get straight to the reason why the Grapevine Hotel became the worst hotel I have ever stayed in my 32 year old life.
I had just flown in from New York on a night flight. I planned to get a few hours sleep but it ended up being seven hours of insomnia due to screenings of Modern Family and the dumb bimbo sitting next to me fidgeting every 30 minutes or so using my tray table as a foot rest. Suffice to say, when I arrived at Heathrow at 10am I had been awake since 9am New York time the previous day. I was shattered. I'd kind of worked out my jet lag issues I previously suffered from by sticking to local time of the place where I was going to. Because my plan of kipping on the plane failed, I knew that if I could work my way through the day without any sleep I would be fine. So my plan was to dump my bags, spend the day mooching around London and hit the hay once it got dark. Everything seemed to be going the way I had hoped and finally made it to 8pm when I gave in and got into bed. Get in, I love it when a plan comes together!!!
I found myself awake at midnight. Out of habit I reached for my phone and started chatting to a couple of friends on messenger as you do. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw something run down the side of the pillow right by my face. Just as if I had heard the Ice Cream Man come round the corner, I jumped up fast out of the bed. I thought it was just my imagination as I have a tendency to sleep walk and even though I was awake I thought I was still a bit delirious. So I wasn't really panicking. Well that was until I turned on the light, looked at my bed and saw dozens, yes DOZENS, of bugs zooming around the bed. Oh. My. God. OMFG!!!! OMMFG!!!! I have a habit of staring like a gormless lemon in times of shock and this was no exception. I couldn't believe my eyes. The bed was absolutely covered with bugs running everywhere. There was something large on the bed which was the size of a garden pea but shaped like a seed. I got a piece of toilet paper to squash it. What can only be described as a clot of the purest reddest blood I have ever seen was now on this tissue. This was no petunia. This was a bed bug!!! I then squashed a few more of the bugs and the same red blotches came out in the tissue. No cartlidge, no skin, just pure blood... Vile... My bed was literally crawling in bed bugs!!!!
I've been around the world and stayed in over 30 different lodgings. Up until the moment I took the mick out of an advertisement for a bed bug killing suitcase (http://plushrugsandbedbugs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/harlem-hoopla.html) I've never encountered the terror of bed bug attacks. I mock a product (which I now think is brilliant by the way) and all of a sudden it's like a bed bug bonanza. Karma is a bitch!!!
I had to get out of that room as fast as I could and wasn't ashamed of walking out like a bit of a tramp. So in the middle of the night I was literally forced to go onto the streets of London in my pyjamas. It reminded me of a scene actually involving Clara in Pigeon Street I saw in about 1985. Oh the larks. But anyway, I digress... I practically ran to reception which was located in another building around the corner from mine. After showing the blood filled toilet paper to the gentleman at reception who obviously couldn't believe his eyes I got a key to another room. In reflection I'm not sure what he was more horrified by, the bed bugs or me in my pyjamas with accompanying spaniel eared unsupported saggy boobs? I made my way back to the room, quickly packed all of my things away and made my way down the stairs into another room. Even though it was about half past midnight and I was shattered, I jumped straight into the shower. Then drama number two happened... After about 1 minute with half of my hair wet, the power went. Really!!!! So now I couldn't even wash the bugs away. Luckily I had left the key in the door to the bug room so I had to go back into the bug infested room to finish off my shower.
So much for my plan of beating jet lag. Think it was about 4am when I finally settled and slept. I got a knock at the door the next morning by the manager offering his apologies. I was still a bit delirious so the fact that I let him talk to me with just my t-shirt and knickers on didn't bother me at all. And quite frankly Mr Shankly, he deserved that image! He did annoy me though. His apology consisted of the excuse that it's actually the guests who bring in bed bugs on their luggage... Was he really blaming me?... Twat!!!... It obviously had nothing to do with poor housekeeping routines and a single sheet over the bare mattress then? A sheet which incidently was so small that it didn't even cover the whole mattress. Funny how I didn't have a problem in the other room isn't it?
In all fairness to the hotel (or shall I say bugtel) they did refund my whole two night stay. But as I am still jet lagged now a month later on that won't help me forgive the reason why the Grapevine Hotel left a very sour taste in my mouth!
1 comment:
Sitting in the pub on my own drinking. Stumbled across your blog which is now my source of entertainment for the night! Thanks!
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