Because somehow, we're still here.
Valkenberg Hotel
Nobody enjoys their visit to this hotel, not the patrons desperate for a place to stay during the night, not the prostitutes who haven't been able to find legal places of business to work at in the Red Light District, not the junkies and dealers who hang out here, not even the owners like being here. The whole place just makes you depressed, no matter how happy you were going in. Every room in the hotel is riddled with problems that make a stay as unpleasant as it can be. Each room worse than the next. The once shaggy, pristine blue carpet-floor has been riddled with burn marks, ash-colored spots, and less identifiable features for decades now. The floral patterned wallpaper has faded into a sick brown-yellowish color, with marks where clearly, water has soaked the paper at many different times as water leaked down from the floor above during plumbing problems, as evidenced by the brown coloration on the ceiling in the corners and near the wall. The wallpaper is torn, cracked, and peeled away in places, and sometimes people have left nonsensical messages in black marker writing behind. “Sally did it” “If i can't find it, i won't be back” “a torch for me and a bucket for you”, along with more offensive phrases and words.
The lobby is certainly no better. The oak wood floor looks like it was once actually impressive to behold, but is now no better off than the wallpaper in the guestrooms, cracks, discolorations, and splotches you could swear were made by blood long since gone. The hotel's managers must have thought the same thing, as they've covered most of it up with persian carpets. Needlessly to say, these carpets are now discolored, smelly and likely a health-hazard from the looks of them. A few wooden benches and chairs are spread around one empty spot in the cramped space, centered around a small glass table with a variety of magazines that are mostly 8 or 9 years out of date. A decidedly modern and clean clock hangs on one of the walls, an odd contrast to the rest of the place. In a seperate small little room, which has bars behind a small window that opens up into the lobby, sits the manager. A fat man in a white shirt covered with crumbs from the sandwich he's eating sits there with his feet up on a table, watching an old wall-mounted television while he occasionally takes sips from a bottle of whiskey.
If the place has any redeeming quality at all, it's the fact that it's cheap.