Incident #1 occurred when our motel room door was opened with a key card from the hallway. After the door opens a hand stuck through the door and tried to undo the inside security bar. I was changing clothes and quickly finished, opened the door and asked if I could help them. Standing in the hall was a janitor with a couple. The motel had been overbooked and this couple had been given the same room. The janitor rolled his eyes and started talking on his radio. At this point I'm assuming this has been resolved. We later leave to get supper. Upon returning our key cards do not work to enter our room. We go to the front desk to find out why. The receptionist, who is unbelievably rude, looks in her computer and tells us that my friend has been seen smoking in the room. I stated that no, she was not smoking, she has an e-cigarette, that only has steam, no smoke. The receptionist states that smoking, e-cigarettes, and marijuana are not allowed. Although I felt this was an odd response I did apologize and promised it would not happen again. We were then let back into our room. In the evening, my friend was standing at the motel window and noticed that this same janitor who tried entering our room was in a van outside and took her picture through our motel window. We were all perplexed at the insanity of our experience with this motel so far. Since my friend could not use her e-cigarette in the room, she began to go outside to smoke actual cigarettes. Our motel room was on the main level and the window opened so my friend stood outside our window while smoking so she could still talk to us. She was at least 2-3 feet away from the window. Around 10pm she was coming back in from smoking when the same janitor who tried entering our room and took her picture met her at our motel room door stating we had been warned about smoking in the room, stating he knew she was smoking because he had picked up cigarette butts outside of our motel room window. We did try to explain that she had been outside smoking next to our room but he would not listen. He had brought several other people with him. He stated the police had been called and told us we were being asked to leave the motel. At this point of our experience I completely agreed that I no longer wanted to stay here. While we were gathering our things to leave he stood in the hallway laughing and joking loudly with his "crew". I was charged $74 for our room and an additional $250 fee for smoking in the room. I sent and email to Best Western Motel on a national level and a message on facebook messenger to the Marshalltown motel itself. I only received a response from the national chain stating that people smelled smoke and she was seen smoking. Granted, the e-cigarette she had did look like a regular cigarette accept much bigger. We smelled odd smells in the hallway too. My friend did not smoke an actual cigarette at all in our room and stopped smoking her e-cigarette in our room after we were reprimanded for it. I firmly believe this motel was overbooked and started finding reasons to evict us. read more
