Quality Inn & Suites Howe-Sturgis — Hotel in Howe

Update: I contacted the Fire Marshal department of Indiana yesterday morning. Today they responded saying the hotel was found to be in violation of several codes and mentioned how dangerous a silenced alarm can be. Until the fire alarm is fixed, they will need to have firefighters on scene. I hope my contact with them means any future travelers can rest easy knowing at least the fire alarm works. However, based on the fact the owners were going about business as normal, I stand by my words. DO NOT STAY HERE.

Original Review: DO NOT STAY HERE!

The moment I walked in, I got a bad vibe. The staff was lovely. Upon walking up the stairs from the main lobby I noticed a FIRE ALARM that had been pulled.

This should have been my second warning.

I informed the front desk, and continued to unload my car to my room. It was, well, dingy. The lights didn’t even turn on with the light switch inside the door. It is amazing how great the photos make the rooms look. Immediately upon entering it was musty. I turned on the air conditioning and was greeted with the stench of old cigarette smoke.

Again, I turned a blind eye. Due to some reviews saying they had BED BUGS I thoroughly inspects the mattress and box spring none were found, but I did find some tears in the mattress.

Upon looking elsewhere in the room to inspect for bedbugs, I found, well, OTHER bugs. One I could not identify, but I did find two stink bugs on the CARPET. One was dead. This is when I noticed a few outlets without a cover plate.

Speaking of the carpet, it had burn holes in it, and more stains than I could count. Then I moved to the desk chair where I located some spotty debris in the crack of the chair. Bed bugs? Tobacco? Coffee grounds? Who knows. I was done at this point.

I called Travelocity to request a refund, and they called the front desk while I waited on hold. Lo and behold, before I could be updated from Travelocity I had the manager banging at my door. He then WALKED IN before I could answer, demanding to know where the bed bugs were. If I can post photos of these red flags, I will.

Travelocity gave me a refund, and I promptly rebooked to another room at the Van Buren in Shipshewana. Yes, it was more expensive, but it smelled clean, was clean, no bugs in sight, and, well, didn’t make my skin crawl!

One last thing, as I exited the Super 8, THE FIRE ALARM WAS...

Terrible experience! We booked a king bed room, non-smoking, that had a couch. In addition I am disabled with a service dog. The room stinks of cigarette smoke, burn holes in the comforter, and the couch was broken to the point of being unusable. Everything is extremely old and disgusting dirty from age. The woman at the front desk demanded certification papers for my service dog, which I tried to explain that service dog’s do not have certification papers or tags, which I had to reiterate several times because she was insistent that I had to have papers. Finally, I said, we are from Wisconsin and we clearly have different laws. To which she responded with “whatever”. Despite the fact that the laws I was referencing were federal laws for the USA. My husband went to the front desk to tell them the problems with our room and asked if we could have a usable couch. They said they would look into it. My husband came back and said he doubted they would do anything because they made him feel as if they didn’t care. He was right and they never addressed or tried to accommodate our request. Their kids are all over the hotel, disrespectful, and up until all hours of the night and simply must not sleep during the day either. At one point I needed to sit in a chair with a supportive back, so I went to the lobby. The kids wanted to play with my dog, I told them no. Then the woman behind the counter came back into the lobby with her kids and brought them over to where I was sitting with her kids saying “DOGGY!” I again told them no, asked that they ignore her because she is NOT a normal pet. The woman then asked the kids to Leave the dog alone but acted as if I was the unreasonable one. Oh! And the bathroom fan is hanging from the ceiling and is inoperable. And what is with the pink stain on the ceiling??? Not the worst hotel we have stayed in, but pretty close. I have attached photos, and hopefully they do not try and charge me for the problems...

This place is TERRIBLE. The rooms STINK, the linen is disgusting and the carpets are soggy. This place is ran by inhumane foreigners who treat Americans like trash. There is one lady employed here (who btw looks like a broke hooker) that is nasty and rude with every customer that rents a room here, especially if you are American. We had just gotten out of a bad car accident, my wife was just discharged from the hospital banged up and with small kids. We lost some of our belongings when our car flipped and only made it out of the car accident by the skin of our teeth. We paid for one night and then was short of 23 dollars for the next night but spoke with one of the staff members who agreed that because of the overall situation (snow storm, distance to walmart to retrieve money, having small kids, being injured from accident, no cabs or public transportation, being stranded here etc.) that they would allow us to get the money out the following morning before check out especially since we planned to then pay for 2 additional nights in advance. Well back to this lady... She comes on her shift and calls us at 6 am yelling at us, calling us liars and that if we didn't pay the 23 dollars now that we needed to leave now and that the cops would be called. Long story short, after we went to pick up the money wired to us, pay and checkout this SAME lady got into it with another customer and called him a liar also. Even after this guy also told her he spoke to someone and they were fine with him staying a hour later to shower. This woman is just nasty for no reason. And as long as she is employed here, they will continue to lose customers and be scrapped for cash. Wonder why they are living out of their motel and were so hung up over 23 dollars... Because they don't know how to offer good customer service. Anyways we are so glad we left and went to a wayyy better place down the road. AVOID THIS PLACE...