One of the great mysteries of the universe is why a place like Homestead, a popular destination for many American families and convenient to the Everglades, the Keys, and Miami itself, cannot manage a decent economy motel. Or perhaps the question is: Why have true economy motels all but ceased to exist in this part of the state, replaced by places that are (relatively) cheap but semi- to completely sordid or, on the other hand, chain motels that ought to charge low rates (given the low quality) but which instead raise their prices to the skies, especially during the Winter season, hoping to gouge tourists whom they’ll likely never see again? In other words, why is it so hard for a traveler to get an honest dollar’s worth in Homestead/Florida City?

Many reviewers have commented about how the proprietors of Inn of Homestead are “nice” and “friendly,” and that is absolutely true. But someone paying nearly 70 bucks a nice for a room has the right to expect something more than “nice” people at the front desk (which should actually be the very minimum a traveler could expect). And that is, unfortunately, about the only thing this motel has going for it. As a property, it is essentially falling to pieces as you look at it, the level of cleanliness is barely adequate (we saw three different rooms, and no one has bothered to clean the accumulation of grime out of the corners for years), and the “accessories” (bed pillows, bath towels) are beyond cheap—the towels are scratchy (and you get one per person, and that’s it – use it as a bath towel and a hand towel); the bed pillows are about an inch thick and will guarantee you a sore neck no matter how you try to scrunch them up. If you already have back or neck problems, sleeping on the floor would be preferable.

Our party of four checked into two rooms—the first room stunk to high heaven of Renuzit (three opened bottles had to be put outside the door in order to make the air breathable), but otherwise was minimally acceptable. The second room reeked of cigarette smoke, with another suffocating overlay of Renuzit. We asked for a change, which they kindly accommodated, though the response was, “Well, we can’t help it. People smoke in the non-smoking rooms, too.” Yes, I’m sure they do, especially having gotten a good look at some of the Inn of Homestead’s shady clientele. But that’s why God made smoke alarms and why credit cards make it possible to charge cleaning deposits on non-smoking rooms that have been befouled by those too rude to respect the rules.

In any case, the new room had the same Renuzit haze (we also quickly set the bottles outside the door), but was better than the first, so we took it, despite the fact that it took two hands and a certain amount of luck to unlock the door: the lock was seriously jammed, and the door was swollen stuck to the jamb. During the night, the air-conditioner sounded like a jet plane taking off, the bed pillows were laughable, and the tiny fridge gave up the ghost at one point, flooding the floor (which we discovered only after slipping in the water on the way to the bathroom in the dark). The corners of the room were indecent, and there was crud alongside the bed and along the walls. Whoever does the cleaning is either legally blind or truly has no fear whatsoever of losing her or his job (which probably means the cleaning is done by a family member).

Let’s not even talk about the stale, prepackaged CostCo pastries or the coffee-flavored water they serve for breakfast.

But let’s do talk about the reservation process. The Inn of Homestead has a website, but it doesn’t work for reservations. There’s an email address, but good luck getting anyone to respond to your email. After sending repeated messages (there’s no 800 number), I was told our reservation was confirmed and that someone would “call me” for my credit card information. No one did, so I finally called them. At that point, I spoke to a rude woman who said she only had one available room for us, not two. That ticked me off enough that I sent a sharply worded email off to the man who’d made the original reservation and, lo and behold, the rooms reappeared, though all other communication with them had to be done by phone and on my dime.

All in all, given the difficulty of communication, the shabby condition of the rooms, and the generally low quality of the amenities, this place isn’t really worth it. The trouble is, there’s so much soulless greed and plain old inequity in hotel/motel pricing in this area that it would be nearly impossible to find better quality at the same (never mind a better price). Even the nearby Econolodge (which is essentially a dump and has worse reviews on TripAdvisor), is asking $109 a night for a double. That’s not a fair rate by any definition of the word, and $70 for the quality of the Inn of Homestead is hardly a fair rate either.

Someone would need a fair amount of capital to fix a place like this up (and I assume that’s what the proprietors don’t have), but once it was in decent shape, do you really believe you couldn’t provide a reasonable economy motel experience, keep the riff-raff away, and find decent cleaning staff for (with as many people out of work as there are) for the money you’d make charging an honest $50-60/night for a double (with the hordes of tourists who pass by Homestead)?

Anyone could do it. The question is why no one has. One important part of the equation, though, is that tourists have to stop tolerating this kind of treatment. Businesses should be competing for our dollars, not treating us as though they're doing us a favor if we show up with money to spend in their establishments.