This is the worst experience I have had in a hotel EVER! I checked in and the first room I was assigned had electrical problems - the AC and lights on one half of the room did not work. The room key worked on every third try. I wish I could say that was the worst of it.

After arguing with me over the room key not working, the clerk reluctantly moved me to another room. As with first, this room was extremely outdated and shabby looking. My first instinct was to spray it down with Lysol.

No Alarm clock, no coffee maker . . . and the mattress sagged in the middle. Burn holes in the bedspread. The sheets were threadbare and scratchy . . .or at least I thought it was the sheets that were itching.

The next morning I woke to realize I had bites on my arms, legs, back and torso. Later it was determined they were both flea and bedbug bites.

I was getting into the shower, I heard a knock on the door. The door was locked and latch closed so I ignored it. A few minutes later someone BANGED on the door. I got out of the shower to find that the housekeeper had beat on the door until the latch had come open and he let himself it. Through the bathroom door I asked him to come back at a later time . . . to which he told me he had to clean to room. He seemed to have a very poor understanding of English.

I immediately got dressed and packed up. I called the Choice Hotels customer service line and was released from the remaining 2 nights of the reservation. They were gracious enough to locate another hotel in the area and confirm a reservation for me. The clerk refused to check me out. He continually argued with me that there was nothing wrong with my room. He kept telling me that he would put me in another room. (again, very poor grasp of English) He demanded to know where I would be staying when I left. It took over 20 minutes for him to agree to check me out. at first he refused to give me a receipt. Since this was a business trip, I needed the itemized receipt.

After checking in to the new hotel, the General Manager of the Econolodge called to ask me what happend. I explained the situation to him, told him that the hotel was dirty, I had bug bites and that I did not feel safe staying there. He told me there was nothing wrong with his hotel and that I should not have refused a room upgrade. He demanded to know where I was staying and why did I not request one of his other properties instead of cancelling the remaining reservation? (I had no idea he had more than one -- not that I would have stayed there)

I again had to call Choice Hotels customer service and request that I not be contacted by this property manager again. I felt the actions of the clerk and manager bordered on harassement!!

My sister and i just stayed at Econo Lodge in Northport , AL. It is disgusting - we found bedbugs in our beds! The best part is, the manager said he didn't know what they were, and he didn't have any other rooms, so he said he could change our sheets. (If we knew they were bedbugs we would have slept in our car!) So, he let us sleep in a room with bedbugs, and then the next day when we realized what we saw (thank god for google) we returned to the motel to check out. We said we were not going to pay to sleep with bugs - the manager insisted he was charging us for this one night, because we didn't check out by 11am!! But he comped the bug night - wow, how generous. It's completely ridiculous that he would expect us to pay one cent after he lied and let us stay in a room with bedbugs. It was a terrible place - DON'T EVER stay there!! Run for your life....... a nasty place.
Plus, we were completely overcharged for such a dump - we talked to other people who paid one third what we were charged.