Knights Inn

[retailisking]

Wyndham recently sold its bottom-rung economy flag Knights Inn to the people behind the Red Lion chain. RLH has expanded their reach by going downmarket, buying Vantage Hospitality (America's Best Value Inn, its Canadian counterpart, and its sister chains.) Not sure what their vision for the brand is. Knights was generally exempt from many of the Wyndham mandates and standards slipped over time.

[giantsfan2016]

Wyndham recently sold its bottom-rung economy flag Knights Inn to the people behind the Red Lion chain. RLH has expanded their reach by going downmarket, buying Vantage Hospitality (America's Best Value Inn, its Canadian counterpart, and its sister chains.) Not sure what their vision for the brand is. Knights was generally exempt from many of the Wyndham mandates and standards slipped over time.

The now demolished Knights Inn in Southington, CT was built in the 70s as a Susse Chalet. It was made up of 3 buildings and at one time had a pool. It became a Howard Johnson's Express and then a Knights Inn. It got progressively worse year after year. One year there was an electrical fire in one of the rooms and instead of repairing it they just closed that building.

Reading the reviews about the dump on Trip Advisor were always hilarious. One was like "The floor was so dirty even my dog wouldn't sleep on it."

One photo that accompanied a review on Trip Advisor showed a sign in the room that read "Smoke Alarm Not Working. In case of fire Call 911."

Another photo showed a sign at the front desk. "Please inspect your room after checking in. Otherwise no refunds will be issued."

Illegal Activities also were rampant in this dump from drug deals to prostitution.

It was a stain on the town for way too long. You have to understand something about Southington. It's a quiet town. (Not as small as it used to be). The crime rate is very low. A lot of the residents are wealthy. There are a lot of houses that cost north of $300,000! There's not much in the way of affordable housing in town. The least expensive place to live in town is the Dunham Mobile Home Park. Currently there is a 2 year 900 Square Foot Manufactured home for sale for $78,000. It has 3 bedrooms.

[TheFugitive]

Sounds like some of the places where Ames would put me up
after they filed bankruptcy.   ;D

[shore72]

Several years ago we decided to take a last minute trip to Harper's Ferry, WV. I booked a room at the Knight's Inn not far from town, figuring with it being in the Wyndham family, how bad could it be? It was laughably bad. Basically, it was a "Bate's Motel" era building under new ownership. They had made some efforts-the rooms were newly decorated-but it was still very much a dump. The office had a screen door like you'd find on an old farm house. Nice, shiny new 6' tall promotional advertisements, provided by Wyndham, contrasted with a dingy room that was exactly what you'd expect an Eisenhower-era motel office to look like. It reeked of  whatever the manager (owner?), an Indian gentleman, was having for dinner. We had to be careful driving to the room because of huge craters in the parking lot. Once inside, our shoes would stick to the floor. Too much soap? My wife wouldn't take her shoes off the whole time we were there-she slept in them!

On the plus side, it was cheap, convenient to where we needed to be, we didn't get "cooties"...but never again!

[TheFugitive]

The closest Knights Inn to me was right up against an offramp of I-79 in Bridgeville, PA.
It never did have a very good reputation.  Then they caught a fugitive who had been profiled
on America's Most Wanted there and people started avoiding the place even more.

Eventually it was torn down.  There is now a Hampton Inn and some offices on the site.

[retailisking]

Our local Knights Inn dropped (or lost) the flag after the buyout (and after some bad publicity for drugs and prostitution)