Neu Lodge Motel

Beware of unauthorized Charges!

We have stayed at this hotel three times now. The first time the rates were about $45.00 and the elderly man that owned it was friendly, seemed to like animals and welcoming. He showed us the entire facility along with his plans to remodel that his son was helping him with at the time. The hotel was old, with rooms that looked like they had last been remodeled in the 70's. They had a little odor of cigarette smoke, and it was obvious that pets had stayed, but we were there to go boating so most of this did not bother us. We visited again in 2012 and the old man indicated that he wanted to sell the place, he said it was too much for him to keep up and his son had no interest in helping him run it. This year we visited again, expecting to see the same nice old man. The rates had gone up to $75 and we were charged an additional $10 because we had pets. The old owner had passed away, and the son and his wife are now trying to buy the property. The son showed us a few rooms that he had added commercial carpet, and tile to, and some other rooms that were in the same condition as when we last stayed. We took one of the older rooms, which were scheduled to be remodeled next, as did my daughter and her fiancé, as we both had pets. We both paid the extra fee for pets that the son's wife explained was for cleaning in case the pets had an accident. We took the pets with us each day when we went out on our boat trips, and put them in the bathroom when we got dinner one day, and took them to dinner with us another day at an outside dining lodge. On the third day one of the dogs ran in the room after being taken for a walk and sniffed a dark spot that was on the carpet and proceeded to start to urinate. I picked up the pet to stop her and took her out. Then I quickly sought the cleaning staff to get supplies to clean the spot up. The cleaning staff was the son's wife, and she was cleaning urine from the floors of the remodeled room next door. I told her what had happened and asked for something to clean it with. She gave me vinegar and Odoban, and told me their steam cleaner was broken but that her husband could use the shampooer to clean the area afterwards. She said she was not upset as " it happens all the time and that is why we charge the $10 fee per night." She said, " What was upsetting was when other guests failed to disclose that they had pets, and there was no money for the additional cleaning". I then took the supplies and cleaned the area. The carpet was so dirty the towels turned a deep brown and reddish clay color. It appeared they had not been cleaned in some time. It seemed to help with the odor immediately but I recommended a product that my friends janitorial staff recommended to me for our rental property should the odor return. We then went out on the boat, and stayed one last night. We prepared to leave the following morning, and I cleaned the room and went to hand in the key. The Owners son was there waiting, his arms folded, and said to me sternly, " We appreciate your business but the odor from the pet is horrendous, and I think you should pay 50% of the cost to replace the carpet. Don't you agree". I told him that I had paid the additional fee for the pet as required and that I tried clean the carpet with the limited supplies that they had, and again recommended that they use a steam cleaner and some Liquid Alive. After all that is why we paid extra for having pets there. This room smelled of urine before we stayed, and there was only one accident, and it was quickly cleaned. If anything the cleaning activated previous urine stains on the 20-30 year old carpet. The room next door smelled like urine and poop, and the one my daughter stayed in smelled bad enough that she had commented on it to me several times. Neither the couple next door who, did not disclose their pets, that had new carpet in their rooms, nor my daughter, was asked to pay for new carpet. One can only assume we were asked to because he assumed we had some money because we had a boat.
The hotel is old, the carpet is old, there are many repairs that need to be done, and it looks to have termites. There were bugs in the bathtub. The refrigerator did not work. The AC made a lot of noise and took a long time to cool things down. If you left it on to have a cool room to come back to the owner’s son came in and shut it off and unplugged our I pads. The same family currently owns this property. The kind elderly gentleman has passed, and I am afraid the lack of water in the lake, and lack of full occupancy has driven the owners son to desperate measures to afford to continue to try to replace the twenty-year-old linens and flooring.
We love the area, but I think we will stay at the Bridge Bay Resort the next time. For the little price difference, I think it will save us money and frustration in the long run. Sadly here is an instance where it did not pay to be honest!