She always stayed at this Germantown hotel. Then she found snakes in the pool and hallways.

The Country Inn and Suites by Radisson, a hotel in Germantown, hosted some unwelcome guests on Saturday.

Michelle Griese said she and several other hotel guests witnessed multiple snakes slithering in the hot tub, pool area, hallway and other parts of the hotel on the night of Saturday, Aug. 12. Griese had planned to stay at the hotel that night with her four-year-old son while they visited her boyfriend's mother.

According to the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department's report on the incident, the snakes ranged in size from "up to few feet long" to "less than a foot." The snakes are believed to be northern water snakes and likely came from wetlands behind the hotel.

Around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Griese and her son had just arrived back to the hotel and were heading to the pool area when two other guests stopped them. The women warned them that they'd just seen two snakes in the pool. One woman showed Griese a video of the snakes and told her they'd removed the reptiles and informed the front desk of the issue.

Griese said she and her son were curious, so they went to check out the pool for themselves.

"Sure enough, there was a snake in the hot tub," she said.

Griese and her son then exited the pool area and were greeted by another snake in the hotel's hallway. Griese said she watched it enter a first-floor hotel room.

"I literally watched it slither under a door," she recalled.

She'd heard the television on in the room the snake entered, so she knocked on the door and informed the man staying in the room of his surprise visitor. Griese said she watched as the man attempted to catch the snake with a plunger.

By then, Griese believes the two women from the pool area must have informed hotel staff about the snakes because she and the man were met by a staff member who picked up the snake.

"She literally takes it through the pool room and just puts it outside of the doors, which I assume is where ... the snakes are coming from since they're coming through the pool room," Griese recalled. "That didn't make any sense to me."

At some point during the ordeal, Griese said a hotel staff member told her they'd "been dealing with snakes for a couple of days now."

Griese said she was shocked to learn that hotel staff, not maintenance or pest control personnel, were dealing with the infestation.

"This is an ongoing issue, and they're continually removing these snakes, or attempting to remove them, and not doing a great job because they're not taking them very far away," Griese said. "They're just putting them right outside the door, and they're just slithering back in."

Griese and her son have stayed at the hotel many times before. She said she has encountered issues with customer service and cleanliness there in the past, and now, after the snake incident, she won't be staying there again.

She and her son did not stay there Saturday night, but she said when she asked for a full refund, hotel staff only offered to refund 50% of the $225 stay. Griese plans to continue trying to get a full refund.

When the health department visited the hotel on Tuesday, it reported that the hotel's general manager claimed maintenance staff had been tasked with removing the snakes.

The manager admitted there'd been a snake problem in the pool area and pump room but denied that snakes had entered guest rooms or hotel hallways. However, Griese's photo shows that at least one snake was in the hallway Saturday night.

The manager told the health department she "did hear hearsay" about snakes entering guests' rooms, but stated that it was "guests overreacting, and it did not occur."

The health department inspector visited the pool area and pump room accompanied by a hotel maintenance staff member. During the inspection, the inspector did not see any snakes in the hotel, pool area or pump room, but he did find a snake skin in the pool area.

The Journal Sentinel reached out to Choice Hotels, which owns the Country Inn and Suites in Germantown; the company directed questions to the hotel directly, saying in a statement it is "an independently owned and operated franchised hotel."

The hotel released a statement Thursday afternoon, which said in part: "While this is certainly an unfortunate occurrence, it was an isolated event. ... We also want the public to know that it is our understanding the species of the snake(s), represented no imminent danger or threat of harm to our guests. As stated in the public Washington County Health Department report, it is believed the snake(s) entered our pool area through a set of Emergency Doors that had been propped open by a guest.

"We have taken additional operational steps in an effort to reduce the likelihood of a similar incident in the future. Since Saturday 8/12/23, we have had no snake related incidents within our building."

Interestingly, Saturday might not be the first time snakes have been spotted in Country Inn and Suites in Germantown. Last September, one Tripadvisor user wrote that they'd found a snake in their hotel bathroom, and a family member had seen a snake in the pool.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Snakes found in pool, hallways Country Inn and Suites in Germantown