Re: Comfort Inn (Fomally the Red Roof Inn)
4950 NE 14th Street
Des Moines, IA 50313
Stay 2/10-2/13
Rooms: 300, 302, 306 & 308

My family and I had to make an unexpected visit to Des Moines due to the death of a family member and the need to attend the funeral.

We rented two rooms from the Comfort Inn on NE 14th Street (Formally the Red Roof Inn). We checked in on Thursday 2/10/11. They were in the process of remodeling the Hotel and they would put us on the 3rd floor since that floor was done being remodeled. Room 300 there was no issues during the stay.

Room # 302:

The first time we went to use the shower was Friday (2/11/11) and there was very low water flow and pressure. We addressed this with the front desk and the hotel manager and they moved us to another room.

Room # 306:

With moving from to a new room, my son tried to operate the TV remote and it did not work correctly, this is not the end of the world, but this was just a start. My son left the room to go to the other room we rented and shut the door to the room as he left. I went to leave the room and turned the door handle and it came off in my hand, trapping me in the room.

I called the front desk and told them about the door handle and that I was trapped in the room, they made no offers to help me get out or send anyone up to assist me. I inquired how to call another room and they told me to dial the room number, I did this and the telephone did not work correctly. I was lucky that I carry a cell phone so I call my son so I could be let out of the room. Picture of the door to room 306 is attached to this report.

When I went down to the front desk and took them the door latch that had come off in my hand the manager asked the front desk clerk to move us to another room but first check the front desk clerk was supposed to check the room first.




Room # 308:

Once the front desk clerk checked out this room, we were told that the housekeeper had to vacuum the room first.

My son and I moved into this room and within a few minutes we noticed an entire electrical plug in hanging out of the wall and exposed wires.

I took a picture of the faulty electrical plug in and went down to the front desk and showed the picture of the faulty electrical outlet to the manager and the front desk clerk, and all the Manager could say was maybe we should leave.

After going back up to room 308 I entered the bathroom and noticed that the door was damaged on the inside. (Picture attached)

Then I noticed something in the light shade in the bathroom that was either a very large dead bug, or maybe more faulty electrical wiring (Picture attached).

My wife had just lost her grandmother and was very upset and all the problems we were having with the hotel rooms was very stressful to her. Not wanting to cause any more stress to my wife I decided stay in the room even though the electrical wiring was faulty.

Our last night at the hotel was Saturday night (2/12/11. The morning of 2/13/11 at 5:15 AM I was awaken by this loud noise sounding like someone was jackhammering in our bathroom. This sound lasted 5-7 minutes and then quit. Then a few minutes later the noise started again and lasted for another 5-7 minutes. After this happening 5 plus times I when into the bathroom and figured out that it was the copper pipes in the walls of our bathroom. Each time anyone in the hotel would take a shower it would cause the faulty pipes in our room to vibrate violently. I called down to the front desk and again got no assistance with this issue. The noise when on for over an hour and finally stopped at around 6:30 AM. I went down to the breakfast area and saw around 10 guests leaving so this confirmed that they would have been using the showers at the time we had the noise in our room.


Remodeling and Construction workers:

With all the remodeling that was going on at the Hotel and noticed a dumpster for the waste and a storage container out in the parking lot but never saw and vehicles from a licensed contractor, electrician or plumbing company. Instead I saw the people who were doing the remodeling including repairs to the walls, floors and plumbing looked like some people that they had drugged off the street to do the work.

Many of them didn’t have the proper equipment to do the work they were doing. Example Friday Morning (2/11/11) there was on construction worker putting up wall covering in the breakfast area and instead of standing on a ladder to do this type of work he was using a chair. Later on Friday I was another working doing finishing work on some drywall work and he was standing on a 5 gallon bucket that had been turned upside down. Again another example of lack of equipment, what kinda of Construction Company doesn’t bring ladders to a job site? And at almost 9 PM on Friday night I saw several construction workers again working on the Hotel doing plumbing and flooring.