In Reply to: Cliff- Are You that Same Australian GM posted by esuh on Sunday, 21. August 2005 at 10:38 Bali Time:
I'm like Michael Hutchence and Christopher Skase... my estate is worth nothing but I own a bunch of property.
The point I have been labouring to make is that rats don't use money. You can't pay them not to come into your villa. You can kill some of them, but not all of them.
Seven rats is not necesarily an infestation, given the millions in Bali. Nevertheless, I imagine the manager was aware of them, had been trying to get rid of them, had failed, and so was trying to make light of the whole thing to avoid losing customers or paying refunds.
If I'd got a refund every time I saw a rat in a hotel, I'd have saved a bundle by now. If it was standard practice, every hotel in Bali would be broke. As it is, you got a discount, didn't you? Ten percent? So fifty bucks a night for seing seven rats in a few days? So every two nights you saved more money than one of the staff members at the hotel makes in a month. And they get to see the rats too.
I don't love rats. I have posted before that I saw a huge rat in Jakarta chasing a cat. But it is usually possible to ignore them. So long as bubonic plague isn't going around, are they really any different from, say, quokkas or potaroos? They just get a bad rap coz their fleas wiped out half of Europe a few centuries ago. It's dogs and monkeys that really need to be avoided, because they could carry rabies, yet these are the animals tourists are most likely to try to touch.
The dead rat in the pool is new info. I thought they just jumped in for a swim, for some reason. How did you handle that? Did you ask one of the staff to fish it out, or go straight to the manager? It was there for hours? And you let the kids swim with it, rather than just getting it out yourself (as a last resort)?
Basically, I know you don't expect to see rats when you pay $500 a night. But that's like not expecting rain because you paid a thousand. Or not expecting mosquitoes because you paid ten thousand. Money has its uses, but also its limits. Base your expectations on what the environment is likely to have in store for you, and save your money for dealing with humans.