Motel 6 in Laramie WY Not Safe or Friendly for Travelors

 On a recent holiday camping trip to Wyoming, my husband and I decided to stay at the Motel 6 on Plaza when the temperatures dropped into single digits. We liked their pet policy and the moderate rate would not set us back too badly from our camping budget. We decided to stay for two nights and extend our stay for several days if we liked it. However, almost as soon as we arrived, we discovered we had made a grave mistake. 

The young clerk was friendly, and he sent us to Room 137. However, the room door would not open. The green light came on indicating that the card was working, but the door would not open. We jiggled the handle up and down but it didn’t budge. My husband noted the snow and ice on the ground and said he thought the mechanism might be frozen, so he pushed on the door as he slid the card. The door gave a little so he pushed quite a bit harder. This time, the faulty lock disengaged and the door flew open causing him to fall into the room.

We moved all our bags in and every time we closed the door, the lock jammed. We called the front desk, and the young clerk said all he could do was offer another room. We didn’t want to move all our belongings again, so we declined the offer. However we soon discovered room 137 had no mini fridge or microwave and the heater wasn’t working properly, so we reluctantly called the front desk and asked to move. 

I walked in the cold to the front desk to get the new keys, and the clerk said he thought the doors were probably frozen from a thorough cleaning the rooms had been given that week. The clerk said he was not able to offer a discount, but that he would tell the manager about the problems.  

When I went to the new room, I was not able to open that door, either. My husband was able to get it to open and we discovered the 2nd room was a bit warmer, so we opted to stay. It was late and the temperatures were in the single digits, so we moved all our bags to the new room in the frigid cold.  

The worst feature of the Motel 6 in Laramie Wyoming is a property manager who does not care about the safety of his guests, tries to blame issues with his dilapidated hotel on the guests themselves and then retaliates when they report problems by kicking them off the property. 

The next morning, I went to see the manager and told him that the doors stuck and had to be forced open and that my husband fell in the room trying to get them to open. I suggested he watch the video recording from the cameras in the area. The manager gave me a patronizing explanation about how these lock mechanisms work, and then stated that my husband was to blame and that it was his own fault he fell in. 

The manger said I should have called the front desk (I did) and that anyone at the front desk could have come and opened the doors for us (the clerk never offered to.) The manager said all he could do for us was cancel the 2nd night of our reservation and that the hotel had done its part by giving us a second room and helping us move. I pointed out the hotel gave us a second room with a lock that also stuck and that no one helped us move—we moved everything ourselves. In fact, we had moved everything twice, once into room 137 and then into the second room and that we really didn’t want to pack everything up and move a 3rd time. Not only would it be a hassle, but we wanted to rest on the 7th day after driving to Wyoming from Nashville. The manager said there was nothing he could do, again tried to blame the stuck door on my husband, and dismissed me. As I left I told him that I am a journalist and would be writing a bad review.

Back in the room, I called Motel 6 and explained what had just happened. While I was on the phone (more than 25 minutes), the manager came to the room and told us we had to leave. He later told my husband he is a 7th Day Adventist. So a 7th Day Adventist who was working on the Sabbath kicked out two guests on the Sabbath with no reason other than he didn’t like the way I talked to him. There was no yelling or cussing—just a woman a bit irate that the manager was blaming her husband for a potentially dangerous problem with locks that stick and have to be forced open.

That was not the only problem with this deteriorating property. There are many potential tripping hazards from a curb that is slightly higher than the sidewalk, to places where the sidewalk sections are an inch or so uneven to the entrances to rooms which are also uneven and not level with the floors. The bathroom counter has a sharp corner right next to the shower that my husband hurt his leg on. The metal stairs are rusting, there are openings into the walls around vents, and there is trash and debris scattered around.

But the worst feature of the Motel 6 in Laramie Wyoming is a property manager who does not care about the safety of his guests, tries to blame issues with his dilapidated hotel on the guests themselves and then retaliates when they report problems by kicking them off the property. Shame on you Motel 6 for allowing a hotel to fall into this condition and allowing someone who won’t accept responsibility for the poor condition of his property, blaming the problems on his guests  instead.