One of the worst fear that can happen while staying in a hotel actually happened today. Usually you wonder if you can trust the hotel and their workers that have access to your room. People usually tells you to never leave your valuables in the room. Today was one of those careless day. A wallet was left behind and is missing. The content in the wallet was the key to the luggage and $60. Checked with the front desk and they made it seem that we made the whole thing up. When asked for the manager at the front desk, Mark claims he is the manager and didn't bother to show any concerns at all. The next best thing was to file a police report at the station and maybe email Dateline as well. Hope Dateline can put on a show with hidden camera's in the hotel room to see if there's any proof of the hotel staff stealing.

This morning, on her way out of the hotel, my sister accidentally left her wallet on her bed. She realized it a few minutes later and went back to the hotel. When she got up to her room, house-keeping already cleaned it, and her wallet was gone. She spoke the manager at the time (Mark), and he had her go through all of the dirty and clean laundry. When I walked through the door of the hotel, I said, "My sister lost her wallet..." His response was, "so she SAYS." I was a bit unnerved by that response so I went to check on my sister, who was in the process of going through the pile of dirty sheets. While she was digging, I decided to talk to Mark again. The whole time I was talking to him, he wouldn't look at me. HIS EYES WERE STARING OUT THE DOOR AS I SPOKE. I had to pause, ask him what was outside because I was trying to talk to him. He looked back at me, I spoke, and his eyes wondered back outside. I know it was my sister's fault for leaving her wallet behind, but he, as a manager, DID NOT EVEN PRETEND TO BE HELPFUL. He plain out said that "I don't believe that she left it here. She must have dropped it outside." I had picked her up from outside the hotel. She got into my car, we drove around for 15-30mins before she realized she didn't have her wallet, and we went back to the hotel. While I was sitting by the door waiting for the police to come take our report, he didn't have any problems looking into other people's eyes to talk to them. I can't believe how poorly we were treated by Mark. He strongly believed that my sister didn't leave her wallet in her hotel room and that she must've dropped it outside (which makes it not his fault for not being able to find it). He also told me that no one has ever left their wallet in their hotel room/this has never happened before. Anyway, he's the type who'll treat people well when everything runs smoothly. Yet when things do go wrong, we're the idiots for booking a room there, and he'll treat us as such.

It is possible that there are worse hotels out there yet to be discovered, but the Mosser has to be in the running. I travel to San Fran every week to work, spending a minimum of two nights a week. When I get bored with one hotel, I move on to another. Oh boy, did I make a mistake when I selected the Mosser. The pictures look good, I like boutique properties and the price was consistent. I didn’t want to know about shared bathrooms so called European style (though being European I sort of question that rather eloquent description). The stay turned into a farce. Let’s catalog the properties’ failings.

Check in – okay. Not exactly friendly but at least quick. It is a totally non-smoking hotel so if you’re a smoker that’s all you need to know. If you are not a smoker—this is the hotel’s only draw card. One elevator – period, in fitting with the age of the building. It was not working. In fact, hadn’t been working for 9 days with no date set for its repair. To quote the sign “…the motor is in the shop and we don’t know when it will be repaired.” The guests therefore are just out of luck.

So up the stairs to my sixth floor room. Two flights of steep and narrow stairs to each floor, so that makes twelve flights to the room humping bags. I see now why they don’t have a gym. They don’t need to; the stairs are a workout all by themselves. Now to the real gem—the room!! Tiny would be an understatement. I have traveled to New York, London, Hong Kong etc and this is the smallest room I have ever seen. To give them their dues, on first glance it looks pretty, A designer has tried but…. No air conditioning – fan only. No space to put a bag unless you want to keep stepping over it. No cable to connect to the internet (down 6 floors, back 6 floors to get it—remember no elevator). $9.95 connection fee too, but with all the other amenities they are showering you with then of course they are justified in charging for the internet (sarcasm). A wacky chair come work-space (remember school desks with swing shelves) that the laptop kept falling off. Wardrobe, well kinda. So small you have to put shirts in diagonally. There is an ironing board though where you would put it when you get it out is a mystery. Nowhere to put any odds and ends (keys phone etc) as the surfaces are to small and sloping so everything falls to the floor. Room too hot with no air con so open the window. Street too noisy to be able to be on phone so… close the window and swelter or open it and put up with the cacophony. Not great options. TV – trying to be cute they have mounted it to a swing shelf on the bottom of the bed. Guess what Einstein, you kick it in your sleep and it annoying. Plus the screen is so small down at your feet that it isn’t worth the effort. Oh and to add insult to injury, the remote didn’t work and I couldn’t face those stairs again! Let’s move to the bathroom. So small there is nowhere to stand a razor or toothbrush. The faucet is forced down at such an angle to fit that if you want to swill your mouth you can’t put it under the faucet. So you end up balancing your toiletry bag on top of the toilet and using each item and putting it back. Not sanitary and not convenient. No plug for the sink. No room service or coffee maker. So if you want coffee when you wake, it is down six floors to a coffee shop and back up six floors. Wow, my legs are aching! Ice machine – only on the second floor so you better hope you remember to get it on the way up (though they have no ice buckets at the front desk so you’re going to have to improvise). Otherwise, yes you guessed it, down four floors and up four floors. Well at least I’m getting my cardio work done on these stairs. As to service, non-existent. Management refused to take calls of complaint though the poor girl on front desk did her best but we all know managers get paid more to deal with the issues. However, they were “not available” to take the calls. How convenient! To top it all, as I am leaving for my office I stop at the front desk to mention the plug and the remote and guess what, they keep the sink plugs at the front desk so you have to take it up yourself. I refused their kind (sic) offer to take the plug with me to the office telling them I’d stop by tonight.

Seriously, save yourself some grief—don’t stay there. San Francisco has so many better properties at that price and to be honest cheaper. If someone can beat Mosser as the worst hotel in San Fran, please let me know as I would like to make sure I never, ever stay there.
Summary – I WOULDN”T STAY AT THE MOSSER AGAIN IF THE ROOMS WERE FREE!!