Woman furious after hotel staff refuse to refund cockroach-infested room
A customer at a hotel in Australia has been left furious after staff refused to refund her for a room infested with cockroaches.
The guest, who goes by the name Kitti on TikTok, visited the Koala Tree Motel in Port Macquarie, NSW, with her partner recently while visiting a loved one who was sick in hospital.
As the couple were about to go to bed, they allegedly realized there was not one, not two, but six cockroaches in their room.
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Kitti went to the front desk to complain, recording her conversation with the staff member in a video shared on TikTok.
The guest indicated she'd spoken previously to the same worker about the issue, but despite the fact he hadn't yet had chance to see the room for himself, he told the guest that 'sometimes that happens'.
"We didn't put the cockroaches in there. The room wasn't dirty," he said.
The guest acknowledged that 'one or two' cockroaches might be understandable, but six was 'not normal'.
The staff member went on to try and place blame for the issue on the 'woman who runs the council', reiterating that the hotel didn't intentionally fill the room with cockroaches.
Kitti clearly wasn't interested in exactly how the cockroaches got there, however, as she pointed out that their presence alone was enough to prevent her and her partner from sleeping in the room.
"I would like a refund for the room," she said.
The employee responded to her request to say he could refund the amount she'd paid to upgrade the room, but not 'the original booking amount'.
When asked why he couldn't give a full refund, he simply replied: "Because I don't feel like it."
The staff member went on to accuse the guest of 'caring too much' about the cockroaches, as well as being 'emotional'.
When Kitti told the worker she would report the health issue, he told her he had 'nothing more to say'.
Kitti was left infuriated at the exchange, and shared her disbelief over the situation with her partner as they left the hotel.
She named the hotel in her TikTok video, asking: "Is this what customer service is nowadays?"
Kitti also appears to have complained about the hotel on TripAdvisor, where a review describes the Koala Tree Hotel as 'absolutely the worst place [they] have ever set foot in!'.
"I would not even wish my worst enemy to stay here!," the review continues. "Had multiple (and I mean MULTIPLE) large cockroaches come out when my partner and I were in bed wanting to get some rest after an extremely exhausting day...
"When we went in the next day the owner blamed the council for them, said pest control would have made it worse, asked what I would have liked him to do about the animals with legs that walked into the room and said he wouldn't refund us despite the fact we exited the room at midnight because 'he didn't feel like it.'"
Koala Tree Hotel declined to discuss the matter with news.com.au.
UNILAD has reached out to the hotel for comment.
Emily Brown