With The Rugby World Cup not far away, many people will be on the hunt for suitable accommodation in cities around New Zealand.

From the experiences of one visitor, Dunedin’s Woodlands Motels and Apartments isn’t it. John Herold says he paid $184 per night for the accommodation (“I use the term loosely”), when for the same amount he could have a night in Brown's Hotel in London’s West End.

Here’s how he describes his experience:

Why miss the fact that this gem of a hostelry is a mere 2.5 metres from a three-lane, one way, national motorway; has a club/bar directly across the motorway – which attracts loud, vicious drunks who are allegedly rugby players but regularly take off their shirts and beat each other to a drunken pulp, on the pavement, directly below your leaky, louvre window at 2.30 in the A-freaking-M.

How do I know that if I only stayed two nights in this (cough) star “establishment”?

A large, laminated (indicating frequent usage, confirmed by said institution) sign under the phone with... what else?... the phone number of NOISE CONTROL.

No, no-one from the management stays in this (unofficial) Entrance to Hell: they aren’t that stupid and clearly aren’t paid  danger money.

The charming Laird who owns this fourth-world establishment (again used loosely), along with the Leviathan Hotel – named after himself – and several other hostelries – so research well on the Net to ensure you get what you truly want – felt that the glass louvre windows [question: can you still purchase these forever-shoddy, leaky strips of glass, legally, in the first world? Presumably replacements – if the Health Authorities are a real pain – can be obtained from North Korea, for a flask of plutonium] which line the wall facing the national motorway and the “sports” club side, were certainly worthy of its luxury-class, money-gouge.

The rats in the roof? Probably POSSUMS! says he. [Ed: surely you are making this up?]

Is there a brothel next door? He doesn’t seem so sure. [Ed: again, you aren’t just making this up?] He possibly didn’t understand this wasn’t seen as a plus!

On the subject of the incompetent staff who clearly fiddled with the radio alarm, so that it went off in the middle of the SECOND night – shortly after we fell asleep again after the pavement beatings – he was adamant? Must've been you!

Ignore the blatant affront. Pretend this isn’t arrogance… like you do when the staff are rude to you in an Italian restaurant. But, hey, what can you expect for $184 a night?

The charming Peter Laing denies having graduated from being a student accommodation slum lord in North Dunedin, near the Otago University... clearly an omission on his CV that he regrets, based on his mumbling.

At +$325 per night during the RWC, you might think staying at the “sports” club opposite, until you are comatose, and can skip the crawl across the three-lane national motorway and sleep on the floor there, might be a comparable choice.

The beds across the way aren’t that new. The rats in the roof/possums in the trees can romp all night without disturbing you. The alarm won’t go off at 1 AM. And the hookers from the nearby brothel can cackle about their various nocturnal experiences the night before, on the pavement outside for half an hour, while they await their mini-bus, without disturbing you, at 7 AM.

It’s an experience you won’t get anywhere else… unless maybe you breakdown in Khartoum.