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Home / Travel

Influencer's horror find in hotel bathroom

By Charles Miranda
news.com.au·
14 Jul, 2018 10:41 PM4 mins to read

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Makeup artist and influencer Hayley Johnsen was appalled to find 'hundreds' of maggots on her hotel room floor.

When Hayley Johnsen splashed out $US300 ($NZ444) for a night in what was meant to be a modern, decent motel in a nice area, she never could have predicted what awaited her inside.

The make-up artist, who has thousands of followers on social media, took to Twitter to share a blow-by-blow account of what ended up being a nightmare experience at the Palo Alto Inn in California.

It involves maggots — "hundreds" of them. And, understandably, a lot of swearing.

The guest was so horrified by her experience that she also called for her 71,000 Instagram and 14,000 Twitter followers to "avenge" her by flooding the company with complaints.

Hayley's "disgusting" story started when she checked in to the hotel with her boyfriend on July 9, stripped off and hopped in the bath.

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Then, she saw something that "looked like a Tic Tac" on the floor.

As I’m sitting there, I see something... I’m like what is this tic tac on the floor...

— OkAY bUBba (@hayleyyjay) July 10, 2018

She continues: "I say … 'babe … babe. Get the f**k in here now". He comes running in and crunches on like 10 of them. I'm screaming naked in the tub. He looks at me and says get your f**king clothes on, we're getting out of here.

" … I'm shaking."

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Hayley said she threw their belongings into their truck and told her partner to call the front desk.

"As he does that I look at the floor. Maggots crawling from the bathroom all over the hardwood towards the bed."

Shudder.

By this point, Hayley said it was almost midnight and "I'm beside myself. Literally." Ten minutes later, a man comes to check out the maggot situation.

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"TEN MINUTES GO BY. a disgruntled older man storms out of the front office and comes over. I immediately start pointing to the maggots all over the place. He tells me he can't see them. HE SAYS HE CANNOT SEE MAGGOTS COMING OUT OF THE WALL."

"He says okay well we don't offer refunds. We can set you up in another room. first of all we just paid $300 for this room. Second of all, your establishment is disgusting."

"We say absolutely not. It's almost midnight. This is a health hazard. We want our money back now. He said he could maybe ask his manager tomorrow if they can 'work something out'."

Hayley's partner refused and demanded a refund straight away, which didn't go down very well.

"He says no you'll give us a refund or you'll honestly get sued. This is disgusting. The manager flips out and says that's it you're checking out, no refund."

Not knowing what to do next, Hayley then called the police, who were just as horrified as she was.

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If you know my man you know that would never fly. He says no you’ll give us a refund or you’ll honestly get sued. This is disgusting. The manager FLIPS out and says that’s it you’re checking out, no refund!

— OkAY bUBba (@hayleyyjay) July 10, 2018

The make-up artist also posted videos of the maggots crawling around the room.

After having no luck trying to get a refund, she called for help to get revenge.

"Call and complain. Leave voicemails. Yelp them. Retweet. Avenge me," she tweeted.

"I don't normally put things like that on them but I felt so disgusted, violated and appalled that there was no way I wasn't going to share it," she told the Daily Dot.

It didn't take long for the Inn's Yelp page to be flooded with negative reviews, and it's now under review by the site. An alert on the website reads: "This business is being monitored by Yelp's Support team for content related to media reports".

The business' Yelp is being overrun with maggot themed reviews. Photo / Supplied
The business' Yelp is being overrun with maggot themed reviews. Photo / Supplied

The motel has been working at deleting the flood of critical reviews.

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The wrath of the internet. Photo / Yelp
The wrath of the internet. Photo / Yelp

The Inn has since apologised, telling the Mercury News: "We are shocked to hear about your stay and hope you will accept our sincerest apology. Please know that we have issued you a full refund.

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