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Video: One Couple's Horrifying NYC "Bedbug" Hotel Experience
By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 2, 2016
Modified Jan 2, 2016
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 2, 2016
Modified Jan 2, 2016
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Guests at an Upper West Side hotel have shared with the world this deeply distressing video documenting their room conditions... and you may want to cover your eyes if you ever have nightmares about bugs feasting upon you while you sleep. This is the Blair Witch Project of bedbug videos.
The male guest, who says he's staying at the Astor on the Park hotel, at 465 Central Park West, takes viewers on a haunting journey through the hotel and up into his room, number 509.What's in room 509?
The mattress has already been stripped (with the sheets on the floor) and, at around the 3 minute mark, the guest proceeds to turn the mattress over to show bugs—dozens, if not hundreds of them—crawling around the seams.
"This is no joke. We're not staying in the Bronx. We're not staying in Queens. We're not staying in Brooklyn. This is Manhattan," he emphasizes before adding this is the third room they've been in (the first two apparently didn't have heat).
To be clear: Bedbugs can attack in any borough. Even in Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria, allegedly.
Then the man walks slowly into the bathroom, where he reveals all the horrifying rashes and welts covering his girlfriend's scarred body.
In August 2011, a Tripadvisor user wrote of the hotel, "I was eaten alive by bedbugs. I am not talking one or two bites, my whole arm looked like i was diseased. I was bitten by bedbugs in a grotty motel in Bangkok - this was worse. The staff at the counter seemed concerned, and for our second night the maintenance man came and gave the room and mattress a spray with some bug killer, and it appeared to help, i only got a few bites the second night."
Then, in October 2013, on The Bedbug Registry, a reviewer stated, "I got bitten up badly on my legs when staying at the Astor on the Park.. On the Third Floor.. I believe it was room 310. Anyway very bad experience but the hotel isn't much for quality either."
And here's a Yelp review from 2014, "Worst place I ever set my foot in. The hotel standard is low, which isn't even the problem. The guy in the reception was beyond rude and disrespectful. I spoke to him on the phone before arriving to the hotel, he was lazy on the phone and worse in person. We went up to the room, saw bedbugs in the sheets and tried to get help for the disrespectful guy in the reception, in total we stayed at the place for about 10 minutes and paid full price for a night without getting any compensation for not being willing for sleep with bedbugs."
It's certainly possible this is some other type of parasitic insect infestation, and not bedbugs! Whatever they are, make no mistake: they're out for blood.
The Astor on the Park hotel did not respond to our phone calls. We'll update as we learn more about this nightmare we desperately hope to awaken from immediately. Maybe it was all a dream?
Update We showed an exterminator the video who confirmed that the insects are bed bugs. Upon seeing the footage of the girlfriend, he added, "Oh, they loved her."
Tagged
astor on the park
bed bugs
bug infestation
Upper West Side
why god
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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