Candlewood Suites Harrisburg I-81 Hershey Area by IHG

Dear Candlewood management and Marriott Corporate Customer Relations,

I am writing to formally escalate a serious complaint regarding a recent stay at one of your properties near Hershey Park. This matter requires urgent corporate attention due to significant concerns involving health, safety, and sanitation standards.
While I want to acknowledge that the front desk associate demonstrated professionalism and excellent customer service, the overall condition of the hotel reflects a critical failure in management oversight, housekeeping practices, and maintenance operations.
From the moment we entered the property, it was evident that basic cleanliness standards were not being upheld. There was discarded clothing appearing to be shorts or underwear left on the floor near the elevator, which had not been addressed by staff. This alone raised immediate concerns about routine cleaning and supervision of common areas.
Upon entering our room, we encountered a strong musty odor of mold. A closer inspection revealed multiple sanitation failures:
• The pull-out sofa bed contained an old blanket covered in food crumbs, clearly left behind from a previous guest
• The bathroom emitted a strong urine odor, and the floors appeared unclean
• The table surface was sticky and had not been wiped down
• There was leftover food in the refrigerator from a prior guest ( square cheese)
• The closet contained dirty linens and a used pillow instead of clean, sealed bedding
• Kitchen cabinets were empty, while dishes and cups remained inside the dishwasher, not properly stored
When we brought these concerns to the front desk, the response further highlighted operational issues. Instead of housekeeping addressing the situation, the front desk associate personally came up to our room and  provided us with clean linens and asked what else needed to be cleaned so she (herself), could clean our room to accommodate our stay.

Hotel has lots of signs of wear. Needs updating.

For one, need to change the area of smoking why would I want to walk into the hotel and be surrounded by people that are smoking on either side of the entrance walking through a cloud of cigarette smoke? 2, the managers, or whoever they was on night shift. First of all, I came downstairs to the lobby on 2 occasions to go to my car, and he was sitting in the lobby chairs feet on the chairs, picking his toes With dirty feet at that. 3 The windows in the rooms open and twice the guy in the room Next to me at first I was like. Why does it smell like cigarettes in here? And my son told me that when he went to the car, the guy in the room next to us, on the second level, was basically hanging out his window, smoking a cigarette the smoke was traveling. Also I know that's an ongoing thing with hotels, but it's like you guys do not thoroughly clean your rooms all the dishes in the the drawer and just so many things around the room Just look like it hasn't been wiped or cleaned in so long. Like The room looked clean , but once you touch surfaces or looked at surfaces closely it's dirty the bathtub I had to go and get cleaner and clean the bathtub. Like you guys get paid to clean like And I'm always skeptical about the bed sheets because sometimes it's like if you barely mess up the bed, they just pull the sheets back into place. The location is kind of secluded, but I mean, it depends on who's staying where but it's not really much around the hotel if you need quick access to something you have to drive about. 5 minutes or so away, which is not bad? And just overall the smell of the lobby and going into the elevators upstairs into the hallways, it's just like a funky smell. And then also I had to wipe my door down because there was just so much dirt on the door from people pushing it open and I'm just like as housekeeping You guys don't see these dirt stains on the room door when entering!!!!

Everything

Carpet was dirty, front desk person came to vacuum. Sheets smelled clean but had multiple hairs on both beds. Room was super hot, could not get cooled down. Kitchen not adequately stocked with basic necessities.

I bought and booked two rooms on the same transaction so that my kids would be close to us, They didn't even put us on the same floor and made no attempts to fix it. When checking in we waited 30 minutes along with other customers that were visibly frustrated. I was on the elevator with a guy that said he was on his third room, stench, roaches and a drain that didn't work.

Our room smelled like weed and there was a pair of dirty underware left behind the bathroom door.

N/a

The pool wasn’t working, there was no coffee or continental breakfast served as stated. Saw several baby roaches in the kitchen area and mold in the tub.

Blood on sheets and blankets when we entered room. Only needed one bed so we used the other one

Tv didn’t work, water pressure was bad, the room smelled, and the elevator didn’t work in the morning