The Lynchburg Super 8 Motel by Wyndham

Texts from Ms. Sim: 

Rory's Review 

What does the average traveler look for in a hotel? Working doors for protection, maybe. Cleanliness, so they feel hygienic. Overall safety, peace. Pillows to sleep on. Well look no further- Super8 by Wyndham in Lynchburg will provide you absolutely none of that for 61 dollars a night! Fees not included. Naively, my school’s Speech team sponsor thought the low price would not automatically correlate it with a bad product- this has changed. In order to be a fully functioning hotel to service humans, there needs to be some fundamental rules. I propose these: Lack of smell or a pleasant smell, have enough necessities in a room for at least one night, have unwounded doors, and this is an absolute: most definitely will NOT have living creatures when a traveler walks in. It almost sounds too easy- Super8 Lynchburg will prove it far from that.

To start, let’s tackle the first room we stayed in. When you walk in, the first thing that hits you is a fume that is eerily similar to the scent of the Baltimore Harbor. For those who do not understand what exactly that entails, imagine the fish section of your local grocery. Imagine that plus some c*nnabis. Now, imagine that plus urine. This is the scent that we were to spend our night in. Surprisingly, while the hair in our nostrils did burn, we were not knocked off our feet and indeed had the ability to walk further into the room. The second thing we noticed was the bathroom door. To be specific, we noticed the many broken spots that it contained. One looked suspiciously like a stab wound- though I would never go out on a limb and say it was for certain a stab wound. The other looked like a strong fist had punched it. We had a legitimate fear that the room was plagued by ghosts. The window was opened to clear the air of the vengeful spirits, as well as the presumably aquatic ghosts that perpetrated the scent. 

Our group decided to switch with a chaperone after that. The smell was giving us headaches, and we couldn’t imagine that the other room would be worse. Lo and behold, it was. I’m not sure if it was a relief or a tragedy that when we opened the door to the second room, the sole smell was mildew. Is mildew a more pleasant smell than a fishmonger's office? Who’s to say.  When we walked into the bathroom of this room, we noticed displaced tiles and siding falling off. It was in utter disarray, not to mention there was only one measly pillow- in a room intended to sleep four! The final straw of room number two was a few minutes into our settling down. We’d started unpacking, getting into pajamas, and relaxing from the stress of the obvious issues the hotel faced when the biggest one yet showed its face. There it was; on the ground near the bed frame, looking up at us, a cockroach. Or, should I say, a water bug. When one of our chaperones went downstairs to beseech the front desk for a different room, the lady working told her they really weren’t cockroaches, they just looked like cockroaches. In actuality, they were ‘water bugs”. I have a few bones to pick there. If you’re aware of the bugs and have categorized what they are, why have you not gotten rid of them? If you are going to categorize them as water bugs, which I do not believe, why do you have enough dampness in your hotel rooms to conjure water bugs upon you? Does that level of moisture not sound concerning? One answer opens hundreds more questions. 

And now we were in room number three. Do not be confused by the ‘Third time’s the charm!’ bull. Room three was the most tortuous yet. No distinguished smell- good. Spacious, most things seemingly unbroken (keyword MOST, keyword SEEMINGLY). One of my copatriots was brave enough to open the microwave, and inside it, there was an old moldy take out box. How does housekeeping let these things go unnoticed? I am genuinely shocked. This was not the end, however. About twenty or so minutes after arriving in the room, we set up our podcast on the floor and made a delightful candy salad. That’s when we saw the first bug. And then the second. And then third, and fourth, and fifth, and on and on until number 9 was on the bed crawling, and number 11 was in someone’s backpack, and by thirteen, we had gotten quite sick of roach corpses. Besides roaches, on a much less disturbing note, there was a colony of ants all over the bathroom. I felt like I was an extra in the back of the damn Bug’s Life movie. 

In total, never take your business here. Never risk your life for such a mediocre location. Live your own destiny, not one controlled by roach caused diseases.