A guest at the Baymont by Wyndham Latham Albany Airport hotel says she filmed mice crawling over her sleeping three-year-old — and has since stopped letting the child sleep in her own bed. Another woman staying there with a nine-month-old reported cockroaches, mice, mold and bedbugs in some rooms. Other complaints included mouse droppings, dead flies on a bed, mold inside a refrigerator and soaked carpets with a strong odor.

Here's the part that should worry any traveller: the hotel passed its county health inspection anyway. Albany County inspectors visited on October 13 and recorded six violations — a removed smoke detector, three exterior doors that didn't self-latch, a stained bathroom ceiling tile, and evidence of pests in one room — but concluded there were no public health hazards. The rooms with problems happened to be unoccupied that day, and the fix was a promise to repair them before renting them out again. A missing smoke detector doesn't stop being dangerous in an empty room, and pests don't respect room boundaries.

There's history here too. A March 2025 entry in New York's inspection database flagged water stains and possible active leaks at the property. The county has moved some of its social service clients out of the hotel, and a neighbouring county that had one client placed there relocated that person and suspended use of the property as a precaution.

That last detail points to a broader pattern worth knowing about. Hotels near airports often take long-term placements from county social services, and when a property slides into that business model, quality control can slide with it. Brands are supposed to be the safety net — a franchise flag like Wyndham's signals that someone has vetted the property and holds it to standards. But franchising means enforcement varies, and as this case shows, an inspection pass can coexist with genuinely grim conditions.

It's not an isolated trust problem. Past investigations have caught hotels remaking beds with the previous guest's used sheets, including at a Hyatt Place and a Hampton Inn in Times Square during the pandemic-era 'enhanced cleaning' era, and more recently a Hyatt Place guest cycled through three rooms and still got filthy bedding. Airline-provided delay hotels have their own track record of roaches and filthy floors — the cheapest room on the vouchers list is rarely one you'd pick yourself.

The practical takeaway for travellers: a brand name and a passed inspection are baseline assurances, not guarantees. Before booking — especially at airport-area properties — check recent reviews and traveller photos, and pull back the bedding the moment you walk in. If a room seems off, ask for another immediately and document problems with photos; brands and hotels respond far faster when there's evidence. And if a hotel is housing social service placements, that's not inherently a red flag, but persistently bad reviews plus it usually means it's worth booking elsewhere.

View from the Wing