Health department finds standing wastewater in Cobb hotel room after Channel 2 exposes problems
A metro Atlanta health department said it found standing wastewater inside a room at a local hotel.
Channel 2 Action News has obtained police body camera video that shows the standing water and conditions in a room at the Economy Hotel in Marietta.
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Channel 2′s Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell was at the hotel Thursday. Channel 2 Action News first broke the story last week. A family that was renting a room at the hotel said management is now footing the bill for them to stay in another hotel that they don’t own.
Mya May-Wiggins said management even helped her family move and gave them money for their personal belongings that were ruined by the wastewater after Channel 2′s Michael Seiden first reported on the conditions at the hotel.
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Last week, May-Wiggins shared cellphone video that revealed her frustration as she described what she, her boyfriend and their baby were dealing with.
“Coming from the walls,” May-Wiggins said. “Can’t even mop it up anymore.”
May-Wiggins said that initially, management at the hotel refused to properly help her family, so she called police.
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“We are supposed to be moving our stuff from 220 to 214. They gave us the room last night because that one was flooded,” May-Wiggins said in the 911 call.
Police said that when officers responded to the hotel, there seemed to be a stalemate between management and the couple renting the room. Officers observed standing water in the room and the couple’s allegations about wastewater.
Police alerted code enforcement, who began an investigation. Their inspectors said they found numerous minor violations including water leaks in rooms 220 and 214, the rooms May-Wiggins said her family was in
The health department inspection report showed numerous code violations in several rooms of the hotel. Inspectors said they found standing wastewater leaking from a bathtub in room 220. The also found roach droppings along walls and floorboards in other rooms, severely stained mattresses, water damage, a soiled toilet and trash on the floor of the lobby restroom.
“I’m happy with the decision they made to help us,” May-Wiggins said. “She paid the equivalent of everything we lost.”
Marietta City officials said code enforcement has cited the hotel 24 times in the past five years for things like improper waste disposal, roaches, bedbugs and other problems that Newll was told the hotel resolved each time.
Management has 60 days to fix the problems code enforcement found during the last inspection. They also said the minor violations they found don’t impact the hotel’s ability to operate.
The Health Department’s deadline for the hotel to submit a plan to correct the violations was April 2, and they met the deadline.
Newell reached out to the hotel’s management company but has not heard back.
