If you thought the apartments in Toronto were bad, you should see our motels.
The Hav-A-Nap at Kingston and Brimley in Scarborough recently received a comically scathing YouTube review thanks to Toronto resident Alex Ketchum.
The video begins with the YouTuber going through a plethora of bad TripAdvisor reviews. His on-camera Internet research even turns up a 2016 Star article covering the death of a young woman at the Hav-A-Nap.
“Someone literally died here,” he emphasizes.
His journey to his suite is even more gag-worthy than the reviews could ever describe: protruding live wires, rampant mould, a sink positioned next to the bed and an utterly repulsive UV light test are just some of the highlights.
Not all the reviews on TripAdvisor are immediately bad, as some from dates like May 2018 say the rooms had been fixed up; however, the video is from this month, so it seems unlikely these improvements are accurately represented by any favourable reviews. Unless they really just fell back into decline that quickly.
The state of the Hav-A-Nap is emblematic of the decline of Toronto’s motel empire, and the neighbourhoods where such businesses once flourished, including Kingston Road. So, why has the Four Seasons (which started out as a Toronto motel) flourished into a global chain while the Hav-A-Nap has fallen into disrepair?
The potential renters are introduced to the hotel with closed-circuit surveillance and bulletproof glass. A decade ago, a Globe reporter noted “shirtless, mullet-haired men with angry expressions far outnumbered genuine tourists.”
Regardless of the how and why this part of Toronto has gotten to be this way, one thing is for certain: at least it’s provided the gritty inspiration for some great Canadian poetry.
by Amy Carlberg via blogTO
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