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What is it about hotels and the inconvenience of their electrical sockets?

Most places only seem to have the one which is ridiculously annoying on so many levels. Some hotels or hostels seem to house their single socket in the most awkward part of the room which makes it near impossible to charge all of your needed items in the space of a night without careful planning and disrupted sleep. I mean if you need to charge your phone, Ipad and camera for the morning (which I found a needed to do on numerous occasions on my travels) well it is near impossible to succeed… Look the difference in price between a single socket and a double socket is about 50p. It’s not THAT much of a cost is it? Why not forget the £10 cost of the Bible that most people have no intention of reading* and invest in a double socket instead…Or forget about adding body lotion to the complimentary soap and shampoo pile and install that other socket.

There are some establishments who not only just have the one socket but they locate it in the most ridiculous place possible… Have you ever seen a sign in your room highlighting the danger of setting off the fire alarm if you use the hairdryer anywhere near the heat sensor? Well how on earth is this unavoidable if the ONLY socket in the room is wired directly UNDERNEATH the heat sensor or sprinkler head?

I’ve set off the fire alarm in two separate hostels in two separate continents because of this idiotic design feature. Once in the best hostel I’ve ever stayed (even with this design fault) in Melbourne and once in an ok lodge in New Zealand’s National Park. Both occasions resulted in me embarrassingly leaving my room in shorts, t shirt, frizzy half bouffanted hair and red face… But it wasn’t my fault that the only place I could dry my hair was underneath the blasted heat sensor. Did the architect not factor in hygiene when designing the layout of the rooms? That person must be one smelly buffoon is all I can say.

Like how Simba learned his lesson and avoided Mafeke’s stick in the Lion King I learned how to minimise such a situation by adapting to my surroundings. On more than one occasion I found myself drying my hair whilst lying down flat on the floor in the hope that the heat off the dryer would cool down a bit by the time it reached the sensor. I have also plugged my dryer in a socket in the bedroom while actually standing in the bathroom (housed next to the socket) with the door half closed.

Never in a million years did I expect to carry out a risk assessment on my lodgings before I used any electrical items but this is something I became accustomed to. However there was one hostel in New Zealand that I just didn’t bother making the effort. After all, when a sprinkler head (which reacts to heat) is located right above the shower head INSIDE the shower there’s just no hope is there.

Seriously… sort it out hotels!!!!

Luckily, the IFC series Portlandia has come up with the solution….

*pure speculation. no offence intended to Bible readers. 

If you have felt my pain and would like a platform to voice your opinion I would love to hear from you and publish your story on my new Plush Rugs and Bed Bugs website which is currently in development. Email clare@plushrugsandbedbugs.com with your story or any queries. 

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Pigeon Street

I’m a terrible sleep walker… If I’m not screaming out of the window of high rise buildings thinking that someone’s just stolen my bicycle (???) I’m jumping out of my skin thinking that snakes are falling from the ceiling and on to my head. Luckily these are just moments of insanity. What’s not imagination trickery however are the pesky little things that accompany my adventures… If it’s not ants it’s bed bugs and if it’s not bed bugs it’s pigeons…

I’m always a little bit apprehensive when I open the door to a room for the first time. I've realised that during the split second of door opening action I hold my breath (just as I do when I’m taking a photograph) because I never know what to expect… the size, the smell, the dust, the state of the bed, the dead body in the wardrobe etc…  

Now the last thing I expected to find when I opened the door into my Vancouver ‘hotel’ room was to be flapped around the face by a pigeon.

Yeah you read that right. After dragging my very very very heavy (very very very heavy) suitcase up two of the largest flights of stairs I have ever walked up (until a Brighton b&b in May 2013 that is) I finally got to the door of my room. I turned the key and was nearly knocked out by a panic stricken GIGANTIC screeching pigeon and it’s flapping wings… Who in turn was nearly knocked out by a panic stricken GIGANTIC screeching human and it’s flapping arms. I've checked into a room before to find somebody asleep on the bed but a pigeon is a first. Still… I think a chocolate on the pillow would have been a more customary welcoming gift.

After the battle of ushering the pigeon out of the window I went straight back down to reception to highlight them of the situation and beg for a different room. Comically the receptionist was a Spaniard whose vocabulary hadn't had the pleasure of being introduced to what I am sure is the most important of the bird family. Something I am now passionately campaigning schools to include in their language curriculum after numeracy, time and food… bird species. So I had to bring out my best acting capabilities to describe how there was a pigeon in my room. After realising that a pigeon was not in fact a chicken which was what I was seemingly acting out I cooed and flapped my charade. I’m used to people laughing at me and looking at me with perplexed looks so I got the hint quite quickly that she hadn't got a clue what I was going on about. In the end, I just said the word ‘bird’ and hallebloodyluiah I was given another room.  

I was quite excited, if a little apprehensive about getting this new room as the kind Spaniard upgraded me to a double room. Whoop I hear you cry… Well I bloody cried as it turned out to be a room right by a Chinese takeaway with their ventilation duct blowing right into my window. Fandabibloodydosy. I went from sharing a room with a live pigeon to sharing a room with the aroma of the carcasses of god only knows what. I thought it would be ok though as you get used to smells don’t you. Well not this time… Instead of my usual sleepwalks and hallucinations I found myself waking up in the middle of the night thinking I was being drowned in a tub of Szechuan cuisine. On the plus side though I woke up every morning craving fruit and salad which was a delight to my dieting aspirations. So you know, swings and roundabouts and all that.

I'd actually stayed in this 'hotel' a week before. I use the word hotel lightly as it was one of those places that called itself 'hotel' but was in fact, more of a hostel. It got really bad reviews on Tripadvisor mainly because of high expectations and low standards. Vancouver is a ridiculously expensive city and I really struggled finding anywhere affordable to stay. In the end I chose a place that was the worst reviewed hotel on Tripadvisor but the cheapest. For this reason I was quite apprehensive on my initial visit. However, with the exception of the deepest, freshest and bloodiest stain I have ever encountered it wasn't that bad. So I wasn't terribly nervous about my impending stay a week later.

           Well, that was until I encountered the ghost of Jack Duckworth flapping before my eyes.