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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to expect to stay in a hotel without being exposed to Cannabis smoke?

82 replies

Hangingbellyofbabylon · 11/12/2011 23:59

Dh, 3 young dds and I stayed at an Express by Holiday Inn last Friday night. Towards the end of the evening I started to smell smoke - we checked all of the appliances in the room as it was strong but couldn't find a source. Gradually I began to think it was the smell of cannabis but Dh kept on insisting it couldn't be as they were non-smoking rooms and it would have set off the smoke alarm. I was feeling quite woozy at this point and in the end we both fell asleep. Had a rough night with the children waking up coughing and I just felt like I had the worst hangover.

In the morning when we went down for breakfast the room next door still smelled really strongly and in fact the whole corridoor did. I felt woozy at breakfast and after rang reception. They said they had had a number of complaints about the 'cannabis situation' and had asked the people in the room to stop . They also promised to contact me later to discuss a refund - we had paid in advance for the room. When we checked out I was asked to leave my mobile number and could only remember half of it, I also couldn't manage my chip and pin at the cash point. Thank goodness I wasn't driving because I was utterly out of it. I know from one regretfull incident at university that cannabis and I do not make a good mix and I would never expose my children to cannabis smoke.

Since then I have rung daily and always been told there is no manager in and that they will ring back. I have mild asthma that rarely causes me problems but I've been really chesty since then. I just can't believe that if it was a problem reported by a number of people they couldn't have done anything about it. I wish I hadn't been so doped up on the Friday night or I would have made more fuss then and there.

OP posts:

squeakytoy · 12/12/2011 00:13

I dont believe this. Unless you were sat right next to the person smoking the joint there is absolutely no way it would have affected you in that way at all.

jasper · 12/12/2011 00:15

surely you could not have got high on second hand cannabis smoke inhaled through a wall?

squeakytoy · 12/12/2011 00:21

Of course you couldnt...

Even if you had actually smoked the joint yourself you wouldnt have been woozy still the next morning!

LemonDifficult · 12/12/2011 00:23

YANBU, you'd paid to be somewhere non-smoking and there was smoke in your room. But you weren't stoned. Could it have been a cold?

Get0rf · 12/12/2011 00:24

I find it very hard to believe that you would be woozy from 2nd hand cannabis smoke that wasn't being smoked in the same room.

I loathe pot and pot smoking and I don't blame you for complaining, but I think the feeling stoned is in your mind, tbh.

WorraLiberty · 12/12/2011 00:25

Sorry but what a pile of shite

If it was that easy to get high on a joint smoked in the next room through a brick wall, people all over the world could save themselves a fortune.

You could have smoked a bloody bong and not felt any effects whatsoever the next day.

If this is all about a compo claim, you'll have to think of another one I'm afraid.

scarletforya · 12/12/2011 00:26

pinkyp · 12/12/2011 00:27

Agree with the others you wouldn't of been 'doped up'

DeepPurple · 12/12/2011 00:29

You couldn't remember your phone number the day after breathing in cannabis smoke through a wall?

ilovesooty · 12/12/2011 00:31

I don't believe it either.

FannyFifer · 12/12/2011 00:32

Bollocks!

AbbyAbsinthe · 12/12/2011 00:39

Fucking hell! I hope I can remember my way to work in the morning

PS What a load of old shit.

NatashaBee · 12/12/2011 00:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

entropyglitter · 12/12/2011 00:57

Ahhh the placebo effect....

Although I tend to work on the basis that if you can smell it then it is certainly in high enough concentration to interact biochemical with your body.

So as it could still be smelt in the morning then the effect could have been ongoing, rather than impossibly still going on from the night before.

BustersOfDoom · 12/12/2011 01:09

Sorry, but what a load of bullshit. DP and I once slept on a living room floor with a couple who smoked skunk morning, noon and night and then some at a New Year's party our friends had. We must have inhaled so much skunk over those few hours which had little effect, thankfully. Apart from a moment round about midnight when I became convinced that Diana Ross had dead eyes - disclaimer - it might just have been Diana Ross's dead eyes on some shite New Year show - but we suffered no ill effects and woke bright and breezy the next morning. Although the skunk smoking couple did not Quite how the OP could have been affected by someone in an adjoining hotel room I have no idea.

SemperUbiSubUbi · 12/12/2011 01:10

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA have a fucking you nob.

NotADudeExactly · 12/12/2011 01:10

Agree with everyone else about it not being possible to get high from passive cannabis smoking in such low doses. Trust me - I definitely tried when I was a teen!

As for the incident itself: this actually happened to me when I was a hotel duty manager. We suspected that some guests had been smoking into the extractor fan in their bathroom. Thanks to the modern miracle that is full air conditioning, the entire 14 storeys reeked of the stuff in the end. We were fully booked, too. I must have handled dozens of complaints about it while doing my best not to laugh.

In terms of your ideas about compensation: If I were the duty manager I would offer you free breakfast for the entire family or alternatively a free upgrade to a better room category on your next visit. This will partially depend on company policy, though. Definitely not a case for a full refund, though - especially as the hotel is not actually at fault here: it's another guest who would have caused the issue.

entropyglitter · 12/12/2011 01:53

The hotel is not at fault? So as long as there are no smoking signs up it's not the hotel's fault if they are ignored?

Don't buy that at all. The guests smoking should have been removed and ventilation should have occurred (maybe even opening the windows or something?).

Goodynuff · 12/12/2011 02:21

hysterical much?

demetersdaughter · 12/12/2011 02:26

My neighbours are complete bastards and the smell of their medicinal weekends often waft into my house.
I'm never high or even squiffy from the smoke.
I now know why it's been called shit (It really is minging)
But they are in their own house and they could smoke a plantations worth for all I care.

iscream · 12/12/2011 02:34

psychosomatic psy·cho·so·mat·ic (sī'kō-sō-māt'ĭk)
adj.

 Of or relating to a disorder having physical symptoms but originating from mental or emotional causes.

 Relating to or concerned with the influence of the mind on the body, especially with respect to disease.

NotADudeExactly · 12/12/2011 03:17

No, actually the hotel is really not at fault!

First of all, because of how airconditioning works the source of the smell would be pretty tough to even locate. A/C essentially distributes air around the bulding - with or without smell.

Secondly, OP says that she complained in the morning. Most places I've worked for had a rule of thumb policy of compensating only if the issue was reported immediately and the hotel given the chance to rectify the situation. If this happened to me, the first thing I would want to do would be to a) send housekeeping with the key to the windows or b) move the guests if I had an unaffected room available. I'd also have the A/C switched off in that room straight away to prevent more smelly air from coming in.

If you don't report problems, you can't expect them to go away, simples! (In my duty management days I would have found a more diplomatic way of saying this, but I would have still said it.)

BTW, if you get caught smoking in a non-smoking room at a hotel, cannabis or not, your average place will definitely not kick you out. They will add a penalty to your bill, though. If you're very unlucky, you might get a knock on your door and a gentle reminder. Seeing as it's usually only possible to tell after housekeeping finds ashes in the super posh china cups, you'd have to be extremely unlucky for that to happen, though.

Original poster

Hangingbellyofbabylon · 12/12/2011 10:39

ok, well I guess I did ask.. I think that unless you were there and knew the amount of smoke it would hard to say if you had been affected at all. I don't think it was through the wall which would obviously not be possible. It was from under the doors and the a/c system. I didn't want to fuss loudly that night as had just managed to get dds aged 7,5 and 2 asleep finally and didn't want to move them and also because I really wasn't thinking straight and did feel woozy. Couldn't open the window, it was locked and no key. Didn't think about turning off the a/c but it was cold and we were using it to heat the room.

Different people are affected in very different ways and I know from my own experience that even second hand smoke can affect me. I can accept that there are people who could sit next to second hand cannabis smoke and not notice a thing but I am not one of them. There were other families with children on that floor as well and I think the hotel should have taken the situation more seriously.

I'm quite shocked at the strength of agression from some people here, would you really not be bothered if your children were exposed to cannabis smoke? Really? You can do what you like in your own home but it is entirely wrong in a public place like a hotel where there are loads of families.

OP posts:

squeakytoy · 12/12/2011 10:44

It was wrong of someone to smoke in a non-smoking hotel room, but you cannot blame the hotel for that.

Also, unless the people were standing at your door, lying on the floor, blowing the smoke under it, I again fail to see how the smell could come from BOTH places.

I still think you are being over dramatic in the hope of a bit of compo from the hotel.

Mandy2003 · 12/12/2011 10:45

notadude - surely that should be TWO free breakfasts each (omnomnomnomnom...)

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