Gresham Hotel Bloomsbury - London, United Kingdom 

Despite its low cost and good location, the Gresham Hotel should be avoided. It's noisy, smelly, dirty, and unsafe. When I was there, the street door didn't close properly, the floors and door hinges creaked, there were stains on the carpet and wall, the narrow twin room (6' by 15') was hot and plagued by traffic noise from the street, there was standing water and mildew in the shower, no toilet tissue, poor breakfast, and a staff that pretended not to speak English so they could rip me off for a 6-night reservation even after I fled this hell-hole after only two nights. Sleep on a bench in Russell Square rather than stay at this "hotel."

We have just returned from one night in The Gresham Hotel- luckily for us it was only one night!! Be aware that even though you give your card details online, you do not pay until you get there which we were not aware of so we were ?70 down on spending money before we even got out the door! The language barrier between ourselves and the staff was awful. It was very hard to communicate anything. Also the staff were quite rude and very unhelpful. We had book a twin en suite room. The beds were small, and the matressess were terrible, all the springs had gone in mine so it was very uncomfortable. They didnt have duvets, we slept under a wooley blanket and a double bed throw doubled over. I overheard another customer complaining that they had booked a double room and turned up to a twin, the receptionist said they did not have any double beds at all and would push two singles together for them. So beware if expecting a double room! Its in a great location for all sight seeing, theatres and public transport so that is one bonus. The 'en suite' was tiny, dull and dirty. The sink and bedee' had cracks in them, the shower was small and rusty and we had no hot water in shower or from the taps. So it was a cold shower/wash or nothing. Now the worst bit- during the night I heard a rustling in a bag on the floor, turned on the light and saw a huge mouse run over to the chair and up my coat. I was horrified, woke my boyfriend and asked him to keep an eye on it whilst I went to tell reception. The gentleman behind reception spoke even less English than the man that booked us in. He said he was unable to move us to a different room, for some reason I could not understand. He came down to the room on my insistance so he could get the mouse out. By that time it had gone under the floor boards through a hole by the radiator. I refused to stay in the room and all he said was ' it probably wont come out again!!' I insisted he move us to another room, which he did in the end, but it was 5 flights of stairs up, no lift and no help with luggage from him. I asked him what time the manager was in the next day and he said 7am. When we got to the new room we realised it was not en suite and we had to share the bathroom and shower. Which was not what we paid for. The beds up here were even worse, there was a sink in the room that was persistanly dripping no matter what we did, the window did not close properly and there was stil no hot water. In the morning we did not want to stay for breakfast as the room with the mouse was right next door to the kitchen so god knows what it was like in there. When we checked out it was the same gentleman that had checked us in. He was not aware of the mouse or room switching that had happened during the night. I explained all of this to him and he said there was nothing he could do as the manager was not in until 5pm!! A very different time to the 7am that the gentleman in the night had said! We happend to be walking near the hotel at 4pm later that day so decided to go in and see if the manager was there, she was. She also was not aware of the complaint that we had put in at check out. So I had to explain everything again to her. She then said there was nothing she could do because all complaints have to be dealt with at check out. She said to email the hotel and see what happens. Sorry this review is sooo long, I just wanted to save some poor other unsuspecting tourist the same ordeal as we had. We totally regret staing there and we are not going to let it go until we get some kind of refund. Please do not hesitate to contact me for any more details.