HOME EXCHANGE DAMAGE CONTROL

My heart sank when my swap partners told me they had inadvertently booked a room at a homeless shelter "hotel".  They were due to arrive in less than two weeks.  Canceling a home exchange, particularly when the exchangers have booked plane tickets, is a grievous sin.  However, their poor judgment required decisive action.

I am very sorry but you cannot stay at that hotel.  The hotel you chose is a single-room homeless shelter.  The city pays the building to give overnight places to stay to people who have no place to stay.  It is not a hotel. It is illegal for them to rent to you as if it were a hotel.  Bedbugs are a big problem in cheap hotels in the USA.  There are no bedbug reports for the hotel I booked.  If you stay in the homeless shelter you may get bedbugs or other bugs in your luggage and bring them into my home.  Please cancel the reservation.

I booked a hotel down the street from my apartment instead: Hotel (Redacted).  I got you a discounted rate of XXX which is only $35 more per night than the hotel you booked.  The manager is Mr. X.    It is a 2-star hotel.  Confirmation number is XXXXXXX.  Phone number is XXXXXXX. 

Please let me know that you will cancel your stay in the homeless shelter so I can feel comfortable having you in my apartment.  If you do not want to stay at the hotel I booked please let me know another hotel you chose that is safe and clean.  If you do want to stay at the hotel I booked please give them your credit card and confirm with me as soon as possible that you did so.  Thank you for understanding.

I did not want to cancel this exchange, but if they did not move to a decent hotel I would have to do so.  Actually, I did want to cancel this exchange.  It really irked me that the couple was so focused on paying as little as possible for lodging that they would make this poor choice.  The fact that the hotel is a homeless shelter is all over the internet, on every travel rating site and even on the reviews on the site where they had booked it.  English is not their first language but they had been emailing me in English for months and their language skills were certainly sufficient to understand the fact that this hotel was rated among the bottom 10% of all Manhattan hotels on TripAdvisor.


Home exchange is supposed to be about getting to know people in the places you visit, and living the way they do.  People who do it just to save money are missing the point.  I got the distinct impression that this was the swappers' only motivation and it bothered me.



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