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| - Okay, I'm going to admit it-- I found out about this place when Googling rent-by-the-hour motels in Toronto. The reviews weren't great, but it's superclose to where the boyfriend and I work and we just needed a place to go.
Background: we're full-fledged adults (albeit 'young' adults) with full-time jobs, hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and even a mortgage payment, but we have to act like teenagers often due to current circumstances. No, we're not married to other people; we just have conservative parents and neither of us lives alone at the moment. So we often need a place to go just for a few hours. Hotels get pricey and although the backseat of his car is surprisingly quite roomy, sometimes we just want a bit more privacy and to not do anything illegal. My first thought was maybe a steambath would rent us a private room (for $20-25 a night), but no, they are all solely for the gay community, and there aren't even any co-ed nights. Hence, my Google search for motels.
So, I found us this gem of a place and suggested we check it out. The reviews weren't great, but the website said $50 for 4 hours and rates negotiable. So I thought maybe we could offer the guy $35 for three hours or some such deal, and go one evening after work. Yeah, I was pretty hard-up. I figured if we liked it enough, and the owner was willing to negotiate lower prices for shorter periods of time, maybe we could make it a regular thing-- perhaps even for a lunchtime rendezvous or two.
We called to make a reservation during our lunch break one day last week--the guy just took a name and time, and that was it (no credit card number or how long we'd be staying, which makes me think rooms were readily available). Swang by around 6:30 PM. The front doors of the place were wide open. You have to go up some very dingy-looking stairs to go to the hotel. The door there is locked, probably so the police don't break in. There's a sign posted with the rates and two numbers scrawled... the guy's cell is one of them; same number that's on the website that we'd called earlier. We called him, and he came in about 3 mins from outside, and we 'checked in'. And by checked in, I mean he asked to see ID, took $50 in cash (don't think this is on the site, but no credit or debit accepted obviously), and led us to the room. There is no reception desk or area; as soon as the locked door opens, you're in the hotel.
He did rip us off though-- he insisted it was $50 for 3 hours and $60 for 4, even though we showed him his sign right there that said $50 for four hours. Whatever, we were pretty desperate in case you didn't get that already, and we decided $50 for three hours was just fine.
There's AC, there's wi-fi, there're people who are probably prostitutes (we saw exactly one person other than the owner). We also did not see but heard the couple in the room next to us-- they were having a very loud argument about whether to stay for the full-month. There is a discounted rate of $35/night if you commit to 30 days, but one part of the couple was evidently not happy with the place. How did we hear them? Could be the walls were thin, but they were also shouting and we were in the hallway at that point leaving our room. Maybe they heard us too-- I'm not sure, but there was nobody around when we 'checked out' at around 9:30 PM. And by checked out, I mean we just walked out.
As for the room we had: it wasn't great, but it did the job. There was a queen-sized bed, a table with two chairs, a mini-fridge, and sink and a bathroom which came with two towels, a body wash, shampoo, and toilet paper. It wasn't very clean, but it also wasn't very dirty. There may or may not be bedbugs. I'm posting some pictures.
So yeah, it's shady but was that $50 worth it? Oh, yes.
Would I go to the Jun Jun Hotel again and again for short-term rentals? Probably not. A lot of it was just about the novel experience. And I was really hoping the guy would be more flexible in his negotiating.
So yeah, we can think "Oh, rent by the hour? Prostitution!" or we can think "Hmmm, rent by the hour? Must be some people who are badly in need of that service." Or both.
They have love hotels in Japan where homes are small and people live in extended families. Maybe there's a market for this in Toronto now?
3 stars for the ease of the experience.
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