Pregnant woman and husband forced to sleep in car, told no room at the inn

Gary and Lucy Best had to sleep in their vehicle after a motor inn disputed their online booking.

Couple who had to sleep in car add to list of complaints against motel.

A pregnant woman and her husband had to sleep in their car after an Auckland motor inn said it had no record of their online booking.

Other guests who did get a room there in the past three years complained about mould, bloodstained bedding, dirty bathrooms and spider webs.

The complaints have led to an Auckland Council investigation.

Kerikeri couple Lucy and Gary Best booked a night at the Epsom Motor Inn on February 21 for a Foo Fighters concert at Mt Smart Stadium. They received a confirmation, but when they arrived at lunchtime on the day the manager said there was no record of their booking.

"He gave me a book of motels in the area," said Mrs Best, 29, who is five months pregnant. But every place they tried was "jam-packed".

"We had someone to meet, friends from England, at 1.30pm, so we called for about 45 minutes. It was place after place, they were all saying no. I was sobbing. We rang 25 or 30 places, but we just ran out of time. We had to go and meet our friends, and we had to be at the gig.

"In the end my husband and I decided to sleep in the truck [their 4WD Nissan Terrano]. We went to the North Shore, which we knew because we used to live at Stanmore Bay. We found a little cul-de-sac we could sleep in. It was the worst night's sleep I ever had."

Mr Best, 32, a carpenter, is 1.8m tall and had to sleep diagonally across the vehicle.

"I was squeezed in the corner," Mrs Best said. "I was just super-uncomfortable."

Kel Kilgour, a visitor from Taupo who stayed at the inn with his wife a week later, said their double bed had been moved to hide a large patch of mouldy carpet caused by an air conditioner dripping inside the wall. They moved the bed close to an open sliding door, but could not avoid the smell.

"We were just breathing stinking mould all night. It was disgusting," he said.

Another post this month on the website tripadvisor.co.nz described "mould in the showers etc, towel rail held on to wall with blocks of unpainted wood, windows that didn't close, furniture that was very dirty and, yes, stains on the linen".

Motel manager Richie Chen said he was "awfully sorry" but could not do anything because owner Gordon Chan lived in Hong Kong and was trying to sell the property, probably for demolition and redevelopment.

"They are not doing well financially. That's why I'm in a difficult situation," he said.

He employs two part-time cleaners and said: "What I can promise you is I'll be working so hard to satisfy everyone, to ask my cleaners to do extra clean, and I supervise them and I'll pay more attention to that and maybe just cut the price down a little bit, that's what I can do."

Motel Association chief executive Michael Baines said he had received many complaints about the motel but it was not an association member so he had passed the complaints on to Auckland Council.

"We've had all sorts of complaints about that property," he said. "We have tried very hard to engage the Auckland Council in actually looking at some of these issues about health and safety and cleanliness.

"Up to now we have had a great deal of difficulty in engaging some of the council to follow through on it."

Council environmental health manager Mervyn Chetty said there were no records of complaints about the inn, but the council would investigate in response to the Herald's inquiry.