THE NAKED CITY – SOMETHING IN THE WATER
Back in February of 2013 a number of guests at the low budget Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles discovered a strange taste in the drinking water. After the hotel finally investigated the source of numerous complaints the naked body of a 21 year-old Canadian student Elisa Lam was found in one of their rooftop water tanks. It had been there for approximately three weeks!
We recall this gruesome anecdote, straight out of the pages of a James Ellroy novel, after reading City Hub’s disclosure some weeks ago of conditions at a certain Woolloomooloo backpackers. “This is by far the most disgraceful accommodation I’ve ever witnessed,” was the comment of one user on the Trip Advisor site. Maybe the water wasn’t quite as bad as the 600 room Cecil, but the experience just as freaky.
Well perhaps ‘freaky’ is only part of the story because anybody who has travelled extensively, on a shoestring budget, will more than likely have encountered these kind of hellholes – be they in Sydney, LA or Lima. Whilst the initial reaction is usually one of outrage, the experience often becomes part of the rites of passage that many young travellers set out to experience. There’s nothing like recalling the crack pipe you found under the semen stained bed in a San Francisco fleabag or the whorehouse vibe of the now defunct Astoria Hotel in Kings Cross. All valuable grist for the mill on your journey to maturity, especially if your career path is in crime fiction or pest and vermin control.
We readily admit this kind of accommodation nightmare is not for everybody – nor is bungy jumping, absailing or climbing K2 in Pakistan. But like the thrillseekers who search out the so called extreme sports, we know many who yearn for a similar charge of adrenalin when it comes to budget accommodation. It’s a vicarious thrill indeed as you check into a dirty downtown dump, populated by hookers, junkies and itinerants anchored at the very bottom of their luck. Hey, you’re only there for one night but the imminent danger of being mugged, murdered or eaten alive by bed bugs is omnipresent. You bash the crap out of the ancient TV to get it working and stomp on a cockroach that looks like it just escaped from William Burrough’s Naked Lunch.
This is life in the underbelly, five star grunge at its very best and the chance to wax lyrical on Trip Advisor in the grossest terms. Perhaps those Sydney hostels, shamed in the recent Hub article should cash in on the perverse desire of some travellers to embrace the horrendous and bill their accom accordingly. Naturally basic rules of hygiene would need to be observed and much of the dereliction would be simulation, but it’s still downright scary as you enter ‘Mephistopheles – the Backpackers From Hell’.
Don’t worry too much about the giant bed bugs – they’re only plastic and the skeleton lying in one of the bunks is fake – not a German backpacker who has overstayed their visit. Nevertheless the atmosphere is unnerving especially when the sound of chainsaws rings throughout the dorm. The TV in the guest lounge shows only a continuous screening of Motel Hell and the kitchen has been laced with all manner of creepy crawlies, including that giant cockroach from The Naked Lunch. At night the muzak broadcasts a constant mix of screams, groans and moans of sordid sexual fervour. You won’t get any sleep! In the morning the toaster is geared to turn your bread into charcoal and the coffee tastes like bilge water. You angrily depart, loudly proclaiming that you will never return, knowing only too well that the encounter was purely theatrical – or was it?
By Coffin Ed, Jay Katz and Miss Death
