A man has shared details of two horrific stays at Travelodges in which he claims to have found "urine stains" on bed sheets and met a woman forced to work alone despite being threatened by customers. Tom Bradey, 26, stayed with best pal James Mills, 30, at the Cooper Dean Travelodge in Bournemouth during the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.
And then a few weeks later at the start of May he stayed at the budget hotelier's Sheffield city centre branch to watch Bat Out of Hell the Musical with his mum and dad. Tom told The Mirror on both occasions he checked in to rooms he claims were overheated and "grotty", with bedsheets covered in stains and markings up and down the walls.
He also said the hotel in Bournemouth was critically understaffed, with just one woman manning a "30-room hotel". She told Tom that she had been previously threatened and chased through the halls by angry customers. The worker, who Tom called a "legend", spent two hours bringing their room up to an 'acceptable' standard, reports Somerset Live.
Read More: Teen who thought she was constipated had baby alone in her bedroom
Tom claims she told him Travelodge has a "panic-button" to contact head office when trouble rears, but that it "does nothing" so she has had to phone 999 instead. When Tom and James entered the Travelodge in Sheffield, which the pair paid £78 for between them, he said they initially had great expectations
He told The Mirror: "The Sheffield one looked really clean and presentable for the outside and when you got into the lobby area, they smelt clean - they both smelt really clean." Tom said they gave the hotels the benefit of the doubt, thinking the people who had already left bad reviews were "just finding fault to get their money back."
He said: "The only reason I looked out for the cleanliness was because the sheet hadn't been tucked in, it looked like it had been thrown on. I thought, 'I'm just going to have a look. And this was when we started seeing the problems." Tom stripped back the bedding and found a mattress he claims was covered in stains.
He said: "The mattress was in such a state. I mean, surely they're supposed to put mattress protectors on it. There was a yellow stain on there which I really don't want to know what it is."
Asked whether he thought it was urine, Tom said: "Yeah, yeah I think it was. There was a musty smell, it wasn't a urine smell but a musty smell, it just didn't smell clean. We walked in there and were really tense, because we could just feel there was something wrong with it."
The room in Sheffield was "unbearably hot", and there was no way of cooling down, Tom said. He claims to have felt the same overpowering heat in both hotels, but said the one in Sheffield was the worst.
"James tried to open the window to the room we should've had but the handle was very loose. Even when we opened it it could only open a certain amount because of safety reasons. There was a fan in the room but the fan isn't the best when the heat is unbearable.", Tom said.
Tom claims to have had another terrible experience with staff at the Sheffield hotel. He said he told the manager and a member of housekeeping about the issues they had when they entered the room - which he said were stains on the bedding and walls - but said they looked at him like they "really couldn't care".
They were then moved to a different room, but because the hotel was fully booked, Tom felt they were saying to "like it or lump it", he claims. He said: "It felt like they were saying, 'We know about these issues, but you're not the first person to bring it to our attention and you definitely won't be the last'."
Tom said he had been extra vigilant in Sheffield because of the experience he had while staying with his mum and dad at the Cooper Dean Travelodge in Bournemouth during the Easter weekend. Apart from the dirty conditions of the room, which he claims included an unclean toilet seat, bedding with marks all over it and a stain on the wall, he said he was most stunned by the way the hotel operated.
A female employee, who Tom says was a "legend" and spent hours cleaning the room, was the only person working in the hotel all night, he claims. He said: "We went to our room and we noticed that the toilet seat hadn’t been cleaned, the bedding had marks on it and there was a stain on the wall.
"We took the pictures to the woman on reception [...] We showed her the photos and she goes I'll come up and have a look. And she was absolutely disgusted. "She said, 'I'm on my own, but I'll clean the room. Because we're fully booked. And I'll do it to the best that I can. I'll replace everything.'"
The woman, who was in her early 30s, then worked alone away from the front desk for two hours on their room, Tom said. He claims she told him she wouldn't have stayed in the room with the "50 per cent" discount she gets, and that she was working alone running the hotel.
"I just can't believe that. I was shocked that they would allow a solo woman to work in that Travelodge on her own", he said. The employee told him staff have a panic button they're supposed to press, which goes to a head office number, Tom claims.
She shared with Tom that she'd been chased around the hotel on numerous occasions but this panic button didn't work, so she ended up calling the police because it did nothing, Tom added. "She was a legend. She was just so so kind and just so patient and I even we even went down we moved all our stuff into my mom and dad's room.
"Travelodge seems to only want to pay the bare minimum and I think now the national wages have been increased it's even worse because they're obviously trying to cut corners," Tom added. Tom said these experiences have left him not wanting to stay in a Travelodge again, and if it's affordable he said "I'll just book a Premier Inn instead."
In a statement shared with The Mirror, a Travelodge spokesperson said: "We would like to sincerely apologise to Mr Bradey that we have not delivered our normal high standards of service on his recent stays. We take customer feedback extremely seriously, and we are undertaking a full investigation into Mr Bradey’s feedback."
"Depending on our findings we will ensure the relevant staff members are refreshed on their training. The safety of our colleagues and guests is paramount to us.
"We can confirm that our safety practices are industry standard and lone working within the hospitality sector, in particular at night, is a widely recognised and accepted working practice across the whole hotel industry.
"We have protocols and risk assessments in place to support this practice and these are regularly reviewed. We once again sincerely apologise to Mr Bradey and we have refunded the outstanding balance for his bookings.”
