We Almost Died Yesterday

Pressure to Extricate Ourselves from our Icy Prison

Forced to Move Out in Less than One Day

Now that we’ve escaped with our lives barely intact, I’m going to offer full disclosure of the events that led up to this nightmare all of yesterday. First I’ll set the stage of the conditions we were faced with being forced to move from a motel room that we had stayed in since October 2020.

Cold Weather and Working Out in It

Yesterday’s temperatures were around 25 degrees outside, or lower. The wind chill was in the teens for most of the day and felt colder once the sun went down. We were faced with limiting our interaction with the outside so that we could get our stuff out of our motel room and pack it into the space of our tiny home until we could get everything into storage.

Our day started at 5 am yesterday. We’d gotten a good amount of sleep before that and were ready and excited to be getting out of the motel since we’d no longer have to pay them with our already limited income. We initiated telling the motel that our intent was to leave. This wasn’t their decision but by the end of the day that’s how they’d make it seem and they forced our hand to the point of nearly killing us. The day started off with my partner and I going to get breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and cookies at the gas station across the street from the motel so we could fuel up and get the energy we needed. I was fully intent on completing the move in a reasonable amount of time and couldn’t waste any time or energy focusing on anything other than the task at hand which was to organize the inside of our home and to remove all remaining possessions in the room in a timely manner.

Late Check Out

The check-out was at 11 am. I asked for a 1–2 pm time frame and decided to see if I could pay for another night just as a courtesy of the room being unable to be re-rented; I wanted to buy myself the time my partner and I needed to get organized, finished and on the road. My initial request seemed unreasonable to Rick, the assistant manager of the motel, who is best described as a two-faced, narcissistic, manipulative idiot. You try to spend more than five minutes with him and have any meaningful conversation with him and you feel like you just wasted an entire decade of your life and accomplished nothing.

Cleaning the Room

I had to talk to him with a more desperate tone as the day went on and had to remind him of the amount of money and time we had spent there and how disabled we both were. Only then could I get him to change his tune. As I was clearing stuff out of the room, I tried to adhere to my promise to the head housekeeper, Adrina, as well as I could. I was cleaning, detailing, and vacuuming everything I could to make the room look as nice as it did nearly 16 months ago when we first arrived.

Housekeepers almost never expect to see a room look almost as good as when it was first lived in, especially after well over a year. I was trudging everything out through the snow slowly and carefully making sure I wasn’t overexerting myself; I was moving as quickly as I could and doing the hotel and the housekeepers a huge favor by cleaning and removing my stuff from the room. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I was being rushed so I couldn’t get everything perfect or even done and a part of me felt extremely guilty when I finally got finished and locked the room up.

Time is Ticking

The assistant manager had nagged and pressured me throughout to get my stuff out and leave promptly. Since my partner has multiple sclerosis, I was the one who braved the cold outside of our truck as he organized the various items and bags I brought over to our tiny home. I wasn’t going to let him get sicker as we had just recovered from COVID. I had to get things out in an amount of time where he could reasonably sort the bags as I was bringing them in.

Checked Out and Locked Out

We had finished everything by 3 pm and had just checked out. We no longer had access to the room. We could no longer use the restroom inside or get warm if we needed to. We were open and vulnerable. The elements would hopefully not be a factor as my partner was still up in the living quarters trying to get everything sorted to the point that we could find everything.

Rushing Stuff In

Some stuff had been put under the bed. This was stuff we didn’t need immediately. Then we had our bikes, our wifi extender, our cart, our ladder, our generator, and other random large items that we had to tie down to make sure they wouldn’t move when we did. We still had a lot to do after 3 pm when we had checked out.

Friendly Banter

I went in to talk to my friend at the front desk, Ashley. I told her all that had transpired shortly after the previously mentioned assistant manager had left. I also mentioned that earlier in the day while I was in the room getting everything organized I had called the corporate offices of Motel 6 and had filed an official complaint about all of the occurrences of the day and my overall grievances with the whole experience. I had also mentioned that earlier in the day Rick had refused my offer for an extra night pay for the room that I only needed until we were absolutely ready to go that day and to allow us to continue to use the bathroom or anything else that may come up in case it started getting too cold.

The Head Narcissist

I had found out that the whole ultimatum for forcing us out before we were ready was coming down from Jacob, the general manager of the hotel. Jacob is an interesting character. He’s an egomaniac, a narcissist, and a drunk, and he always likes to feel a good amount of superiority over everyone around him, and believes no one could measure up to his intelligence level. He also has hot temper and is very impulsive. More on that later. Anyway, as I’m telling Ashley everything, she’s rightfully mad along with me and finds the whole situation the motel put us in as unacceptable.

Nice and Friendly

We were the ones who told them we were moving out. They wanted to move us and our truck to a different room before I mentioned this fact. He didn’t want us to stay in our room anymore. That room was the same one we’d been in the entire time we were there. We were essentially and legally tenants in the eyes of the law. He felt like he had to take forceful action as he had started telling me that he thought that I thought I ran the place by then. I was only respectful, polite, and nice to everyone on his staff. I was extremely personable, friendly, and would lend my knowledge to anyone who would ask and want to know. I was probably too friendly in retrospect.

You’re Not Miserable?

You know what they say about confident, happy people and those who are miserable. The miserable ones want to take you down with them. Anyway, he had left a message with the rest of the staff before yesterday that we were not to extend our room and could only talk to Rick or Jake about our options. He essentially said that if we decided to leave, we would have to get our truck out and would not be welcome back. This was on an official staff forum for the motel. This was unprecedented and extremely unprofessional.

Singling Out the Cash Cow

He was literally singling out one guest. But not just a regular guest. His longest tenured regular room guest and the one who had paid over 24 thousand dollars over the course of nearly 16 months. The one who was always friendly and helpful and kind to everyone he encountered. We mostly minded our own business. The only time you ever knew we were there was when we were outside.

Fabricating Problems

Rick and Jake developed a problem with our truck. They hated having to see a yellow box truck constantly parked out in front of our room. The mental gymnastics Jake started flinging at me when he explained away the situation and why we had to leave was mind-numbing. He lied his way out of everything. He said it was the owner, Nick Maragas, who wanted us gone and that his job and livelihood were threatened by my seeming lack of awareness.

Various staff members had said that they had heard him say that he was making up excuses to force us to leave because he didn’t want to have to deal with dissent from Rick and the maintenance men over my truck. Another thing is that the maintenance men on this property are absolutely horrible at their jobs. One of their biggest jobs in the wintertime is to remove snow from the parking lot and the roads leading in and out of the property. You can clearly see the lot next to me with snow and ice. The snow and ice to the driver’s side of our truck and behind it were not plowed properly.

Trapped in Ice and Incompetence

It had been nearly a week since the last major snow. They had been letting that snow pile up for weeks before that and never came to make sure we could get out. All of this information is relevant leading up to the cold day we were moving all day. We were outside trying to get everything ready so that we could be ready to move. We finally finished everything we needed to in the truck being outside the room just before 11 pm as we were also spending hours trying to shovel our way out of the excuse they call a parking lot.

The parking lot for trucks in the front is essentially a pool that is filled in with rocks on top of water still in the pool. The snow on top sure adds weight and I could see one day that pool coming to the surface and reclaiming that area. We were stuck and the ultimatum was long overdue. We were checked out of the room for hours. The general manager who had forced the issue and wielded and overstepped his powers was about to come in. We were all surely going to be yelled at for not being gone yet. We couldn’t get out.

Continuous Freeze

We were stuck in ice and snow and our truck kept stalling out. We were tired as we’d been at it for more than 18 hours at this point and just wanted to leave and sleep elsewhere. At this point, I couldn’t feel extremities. I had extreme pain in my joints and I was twitching and shivering in ways I never had before. I felt like I might die that night with my partner out in the Motel 6 Erie parking lot trying to move out.

Certain Death

Because of the incompetence of the maintenance men and the act of force by management, we were facing certain death and or imprisonment. The general manager had arrived with the expectation that we were gone. I came inside to plea with him and ask him for some sort of help one last time. We wanted to leave but we also needed to sleep and certainly letting us sleep one more night here until they could get us properly cleared out was a reasonable request. He vehemently denied our request, started yelling at me like I was a criminal, and threatened to call the police and have us removed forcefully for trespassing.

Making Us Pay For the Motel’s Mistakes

All of this is because of our truck. We were trying not to be homeless and had been paying this motel for the last 16 months and he wanted to end it unceremoniously. He said we needed to figure out how to get it out, call a tow truck with money we didn’t have, and pull us 20 feet to get us out of a parking lot that was completely the motel’s responsibility to keep clear. I beat him to the punch. I called the cops myself. I explained the situation and asked for their advice.

They said it was a civil matter and that the motel general manager even though he was doing the removal for all the wrong reasons was technically within his legal rights. I’ve read a thing or two about tenant law and I just think that the cops didn’t really want to get in the middle of it. They did offer to call around and find us a tow. I obliged. They also said that if they got the call, we would have time to figure it out.

Shelling Out Money We Desperately Needed

We didn’t have the means to do it but we paid 300 dollars to get a tow truck out to us so we could leave this frozen hellhole. We were already shivering, in pain, exhausted, and scared. We had been terrorized by a monster who wanted to watch us suffer. How could a human being be so cruel and unfeeling? Jake didn’t care about the amount of pain he had caused model guests who had never caused trouble. He just saw a truck that had already been there too long for his liking and he wanted it gone. He wanted us gone. He was taking every measure and making every lie to ensure it would happen.

Feeling Myself Fade and Trying to Hang On

I wanted to die at that point. I couldn’t hold on much longer. I begrudgingly wiped out my entire bank account and paid the tow truck. We wanted to get out. We couldn’t be there anymore. I told Jake that we were leaving and waiting for a tow. He finally played nicely again instead of his earlier tone. He got what he wanted. He watched us suffer. He won. I had complied with his original unreasonable request days earlier and I was suffering for being a nice person.

My partner and I were surely going to suffer and most likely die from being exposed to the cold this long. Somehow I survived. We both woke up today. I’m still feeling some aftereffects even after finally eating, sleeping, and getting a hot shower. This fiasco surely affected me, traumatized me, maybe even changed me. I have a rage building within me now to take down all of those responsible for nearly killing us. I’m almost certainly going to ask the motel to reimburse us for a lot and to return a percentage of the money we had paid during our stay.

Being Thrown Away

We were thrown away like trash and we were paying customers willing to stay at a low rate, cheap motel full of hookers, drug dealers, and drug addicts, and still never bothered anyone and kept our heads down. None of the other guests or other staff ever had a bad thing to say about us except for the two in leadership who have nothing better to do than to talk badly about good people. Coincidentally, they’re both drunken narcissists who try to exert power over good people. I’m thoroughly convinced that karma is going to get them in the long run, and even though I’ve complained to corporate and explained the entire situation to them, they most certainly will get a slap on the wrist at best from corporate and from the largely absent, out of state owner Nick Maragas.

Slap on the Wrist/Onward and Upward

No, they got away with murder essentially here, but they didn’t kill us. We’re still standing and I guess the lesson here is that I just won’t leave my life up to other people ever again, especially those who want to watch me fall. I’m going to rise up every time. Potential hypothermia didn’t kill me. It tried but I’m still alive. Sore, numb, and disoriented, but alive. I have since left a review on Google about the place that isn’t showing up yet, but I could include it in the story so you can read it. The next chapter begins.

My partner and I are disabled. We nearly died last night trying to appease an egomaniac named Jake, the GM of the hotel we’d been staying at for the last 16 months. I had written a glowing review of this place. They were accommodating and terrific. I still have some good things to point out here. After paying over 24K over the course of our stay, I’m left with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Let me start with the good, the housekeeping staff is amazing. They really care about their jobs and keep the rooms looking fantastic. Thank you to Nora, Harry, Rob, CeeCee, Adrina, Lexi, Shy, Mag, and anyone I’m forgetting on that fantastic staff. I didn’t need them much as I cleaned all my own stuff and even in leaving left the room in marvelous condition, probably just as good if not better than I left it.

The problem here starts at the maintenance level, Bob and Jim. This is how the whole fiasco started but it gets worse. I have these two on my truck’s surveillance footage not doing anything close to a good job at snow removal. This place could hire kids that would do a better job. As I mentioned, my partner and I are disabled and we couldn’t access the driver’s side of our truck because there was an entire snowbank blocking us. He had to use a cane to get in just to start the truck. We weren’t parked the furthest left in that excuse of a truck parking lot that is just rocks and snow filling in an old pool. FYI, the pool is still under there so one of these days that lot will just collapse. This caused major problems for many guests trying to get in and out of this place.

We were ready to leave weeks ago but the snow and ice were so poorly removed, our truck couldn’t get out. We couldn’t even empty our room until the day we were forced out for no good reason. That’s where I go next. We almost certainly got hypothermia yesterday being compliant to unreasonable demands from Jake that we and our truck had to leave because even though it’s not, our truck was supposedly creating a problem with its presence on the property. No one on the property the whole time we were there were ever bothered by us there. Let me get back to a little more positive before I lose my cool. Ashley and Morgan are amazing workers and the nicest people I’ve ever interacted with.

Rick, the assistant manager, is a sad man and is the reason to blame for this whole mess. He created drama instigating the entire incident. I was told by a housekeeper that he said he wanted to beat me up because of my truck with no instigation. I’ve met him and his significant other outside of work before I started staying there and I never got the intention or vibe that he was manipulative. So now you have the major players. They tried to state that the owner, Nick Maragas, who is in a different state and is largely absent, had a problem with us and our truck. Since it ran, I didn’t understand the issue and I suspected that the GM, who is a raving narcissist and drunk, was lying for his own benefit, and the owner was none the wiser to any of this. The only time Nick had said anything about the truck is when we had to do minor repair and we accidentally left out some parts near the truck but underneath and out of the way We quickly rectified the situation and all was well He was getting lots of money from us and we were model guests. Nearly everyone we interacted with could attest to this.

We were trying to survive winter. Jake and Rick were the major players in preventing Nick’s business from getting money from the highest revenue guests. Long story, it ends with us paying 300 dollars to get towed out last night after working hours trying to leave. We were told we were responsible for extricating ourselves from this poor excuse of a lot. After all this unnecessary and headache, I’m almost certainly going to demand a small percentage of the money back. The gross incompetence of leadership cost their owner thousands and nearly our lives and was almost certainly illegal. -Gerald Sturgill, Google Reviews, Motel 6 Erie PA