‘Shining’ Hotel Denies Evil Infestation

There's a rather acidic email exchange going on between a one Julie Kobayashi and the famed Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Ms. Kobayashi claims that the Stanley gave her, her fiancé, and their home a rash of bedbugs, which has in turn racked up cleaning and replacement fees in the thousands of dollars. The Stanley -- inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining, incidentally -- maintains that they did not, in fact, send Ms. Kobayashi home with any sort of infestation. Read on for the war of words.

Ms. Kobayashi as told to Elliot.org.

I stayed at the Stanley Hotel over Valentine’s weekend and instead of bringing back pleasant memories, I brought home bed bugs. I contacted the Stanley Hotel and they forwarded my claim to their risk management who denied my claim. I wrote a letter to the president of the corporation, Grand Heritage Hotel Groups who did not even respond to my letter. This has been a nightmare for us. We had pest control treat our house three times and spent thousands of dollars on washing, drying, dry cleaning, replacing our pillows, and sofa. Do you have any suggestions?

The Stanley’s response, after Elliot forwarded Ms. Kobayashi’s email to them:

Persistence seems to be one of your stronger attributes, but the facts don’t substantiate the claim that you are making regarding your stay at the Stanley Hotel. Your claim was denied from our insurance carrier after an extensive investigation was completed by an exterminator that concluded no evidence of “bed bugs” located in the guest room you occupied. But let me reflect upon your timeline of events: You arrived at the Stanley on February 13 on the 14th you noticed 3 bites/marks on your left leg, but did not bring to attention of management of the Hotel. You and your finance returned home and you noticed more bites, but didn’t seek medical advice/attention until February 23. The fact that you identify in your letters that you have 2 cats and a dog, may suggest a flea issue that result in similar bites. I can’t even begin to imagine how the alleged infestation happened at your house from your return on February 15, but since you didn’t acknowledge it while at the Stanley Hotel and didn’t seek medical attention until a week after returning home there is nothing further than I can offer.

Ms. Kobayashi:

I did not bring the bites to the Stanley management’s attention because I did not realize that I had bed bugs since I have never experienced this before. I do not believe that most guests with three bites would immediately bring this to the hotel management’s attention. The claims investigator informed me that the Stanley already washed the sheets (and “washed the evidence”). However, the evidence is that I had bites the morning after staying at the Stanley. Also, in Colorado we do not have fleas so my bites are not from our animals. In addition, fleas are not bed bugs. One of the reasons I finally did seek medical treatment is that the number of bites increased to various parts of my body. If you are aware of the literature with bed bugs, they lay their eggs and it takes some days to hatch and then people experience numerous bites. My impression is that I brought the bed bugs from the Stanley and they infested our house, which is why we had to have pest control treat our house three times. I started out with three bites and then it spread to various parts of my body, which is a common pattern for bed bugs. In addition, it is now common knowledge that bed bugs are problematic even in the “upscale” hotels. This experience has been a very stressful and costly for my family. We have accrued additional costs since I wrote the itemized lists. We had to replace two sofas because of continued bites. Perhaps the Stanley conducted an “extensive” investigation, although bed bugs are very difficult to find even by professionals. I would like a copy of this “extensive” report. One can conclude that the bed bugs came from the Stanley since I had no bites upon my arrival, but woke up with bites the next morning. I think that this situation has been handled poorly and rather than taking ownership the Stanley is blaming me. When I wrote to Mr. Cullen, I expected a response, but instead had to enlist the assistance of the media (Elliot.org) to even receive a response.

This claim will be very difficult to prove, as bedbugs are a sneaky, silent, and widespread. Perhaps she could try Jack Torrance’s preferred method of extracting satisfaction when running into barriers at the Stanley.