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I stayed in a hotel on a Greek island and one morning I found a cockroach (alive) in the shower; later that day I spotted a dead one on one corner of the hall.

It was pretty clear that the hotel had some problems with these insects and it was also clear that they were actively addressing the problem since they cleaned the rooms and the shared areas quite often.

In the end, since I found only one in my room I decided to avoid complaining but I wondered if there exists some laws, expecially in western countries, that apply to this case or a standard way in which the hotels and the customers cope with this problem (refunding, having a new room, etc.).

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    There are two kinds of cockroaches. Small ones which cause infestations inside buildings (German cockroaches). And large ones which can fly and don't infest buildings (American cockroaches). It's a problem if the hotel had the former kind, if it was the latter kind the best you can do is to have fly screens on windows. (This is the situation in Australia anyway.) Oct 16, 2013 at 8:54
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    @hippietrail, for completness I must say that the type of coackroach was the German one.
    – shard
    Oct 16, 2013 at 13:45
  • Changed title to specify Greece, to prevent it being too broad (laws and rights differ elsewhere)
    – Mark Mayo
    Aug 18, 2015 at 5:49

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I am not aware of any specific laws on the matter. However, the fact that you found a dead one in the corner - as you already mentioned - might be indicative that the hotel is actually doing something about it. Usually I take the position that cockroaches in some regions of the world are simply "a fact of life". I have lived in such a region myself, where it was a constant battle to beat these nasty creatures and still with all efforts you would see one once and a while.

That of course, isn't a waiver for the hotel to do nothing, but if it is just one or two cockroaches, especially since one being dead, I would give your hotel the benefit of the doubt.

I would however report it. Good hotels want to act on these sightings. If they are indifferent to you mentioning a cockroach, you might want to mention it in an online review.

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  • thank you for the reply. I know that you can report the problem to the hotel (anyway in this case they clearly already knew it) but what I would like to understand is if you are expecting something in turn when you report it since in the end you spent money to sleep there.
    – shard
    Oct 16, 2013 at 15:01

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