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Swank Park Avenue Hotel Guests Say Bed Bugs Came With The Room
By
Gaby Del Valle
Published Aug 22, 2016
Modified Aug 22, 2016
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By
Gaby Del Valle
Published Aug 22, 2016
Modified Aug 22, 2016
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Wedding guests at a boutique Park Avenue hotel claim they were bitten by bed bugs the night before the ceremony, and they say the hotel refused to give them a refund.
Chris McKennan and Katherine Hines were married on August 6th at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. In the days leading up to the wedding, their guests and bridal party stayed at the Kitano Hotel on Park Avenue. McKennan's mother, Dr. Laurie Gordon, claims she woke up with four red, inflamed bites on her lower back, which she believes were bed bug bites.
"I was annoyed. I was kind of like grossed out. It was like, 'Eww!'" she tells the NY Post. But the hotel's management insisted there were no bed bugs, infuriating Gordon. "I know every hotel can get them. I wasn't faulting the Kitano. I was faulting the manager's response to us."
Every hotel can get them, indeed. This isn't the first time a high-end NYC hotel has dealt with bedbug complaints. In 2011, the Waldorf Astoria was hit with three lawsuits from guests who claimed they were bit by bed bugs at the hotel. And on the other end of the hotel spectrum, a couple claimed the Department of Housing housed them in a bed bug-infested hotel on the Upper West Side after their Brooklyn apartment burned down in a fire. Even worse, in January we received this horrifying video from two guests who claimed they were ravaged in the night at the Astor on the Park Hotel at 465 Central Park West.
Gordon says that after housekeeping inspected her suite, management claimed there were no bed bugs and offered to move her to another room. The next day, while Gordon was hosting a wedding brunch at the hotel, general manager Zach Zahran allegedly approached her and denied the existence of bed bugs in the room.
A Yelp review posted on the Kitano's page on August 9th by "Don H" appears to be related to Gordon's allegation. According to Don, after his fiancé woke up with bed bug bites on her back, he took a poll of other guests and discovered they had been bitten as well.
Read Don H.'s review of The Kitano Hotel on Yelp
In a reply to Don's Yelp complaint, Zahran claimed his staff "immediately took action" and found "no sign of bedbugs nor activity of any other pests."
A 2013 TripAdvisor review suggests this isn't the first time bedbugs have made an alleged appearance at the Kitano. User "tomomi m" claims she and her husband found four bedbugs crawling around in the sheets.
"When I explained my situation to the night manager Aaron, his response was appalling," she wrote. "He asked me whether I had been out of the country, implying that I had possibly brought the bugs into the room." Then-general manager Clement Carey responded with an apology, but did not mention whether or not there had actually been bedbugs in the room. A 2010 review claims guests "woke up with red spots all-over himself which was diagnosed by a local doctor as bedbugs" and that "the hotel was not very accommodating" when confronted.
According to Gordon, Zahran refused to comp her suite—which cost $700 a night—and later produced an exterminator's report that indicated the rooms were pest-free. Between August 9th and 16th, six bed bug-related complaints at the Kitano were made to the Housing Preservation and Development Department.
Reached by phone today, Gordon declined to speak on the record about any of this. But the Kitano New York responded to Gordon's allegations with the following statement:
The Kitano New York team takes allegations of bedbugs very seriously and addressed this claim immediately. Upon hearing the complaint, we offered to relocate the guests to a different set of rooms as a precaution and courtesy, which the guests declined. Within 24 hours the guestrooms were inspected by an outside specialist and an official inspection report, which we provided to the guest, stated that there was no evidence or indication of bedbugs. The safety and well-being of our guests is of paramount importance. Our housekeeping and engineering departments are vigilant to ensure that guestrooms are kept clean, sanitary and safe. We pride ourselves on the utmost hospitality and service for which we are known and will continue to operate in this manner.
The Kitano management also forwarded us exterminator inspection reports from RJS Pest Management Specialists claiming that rooms 1702, 1408, 1403, and 1009 were found to be free of bedbugs on August 8th.
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