Union Square Backpackers Hostel

San Francisco (Union Square)

10 von 22

Adresse	70 Derby Street, San Francisco (Union Square), California, USA Karte
Preis	Dorm beds from US$18.00. Private rooms from US$25.00/person. Preise je nach Saison variabel - PrÃ¼fe Preise nach Datum

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Union Square Backpackers Hostel is not in very good repair. There doesn't seem to be any security and the place is rundown and dirty. The people staying there are sketchy at best and everything is disorganized. Staff try to be helpful but are not always the best informed about things to do in San Francisco.

The Location

The location is near Union Square but actually in the Tenderloin area, which is an area with homeless people. It is not safe to walk around during the night. The actual hostel is at the end of an alley. Within a few blocks are restaurants, shops, and public transportation. There is no on-site parking.

Rooms and Bathrooms

The bedrooms have mattresses with duct tape holding them together. Sheets and towels are not provided. The bathrooms are not cleaned regularly but management indicates that they are in the process of updating and repairing them. The dorm rooms are small and cramped with a bad smell and are located on various floors of the building. The stairs are steep and narrow, so it is hard to cart up lots of gear. There is no air conditioning and the windows may not shut completely. The entire hostel is in need of refurbishing.

Common Spaces

There is free internet and a small kitchen and TV room. It looks like no one has picked up or cleaned for a very long time. Dirty dishes and debris covers most surfaces. There are security lockers and a coin-operated washer and dryer. Right outside the hostel is a bike rental that is not affiliated with the hostel itself that rents bikes at the cheapest price in San Francisco.

Summary

The people staying at this hostel are middle aged men and seem to be long-term residents. The atmosphere is not especially friendly and the guests themselves are pretty dirty and rundown. There are better choices in San Francisco for safety, cleanliness, and hospitality. The standards are very low at this hostel. There is not a tours desk as such in the reception, so guests cannot rely on help from the staff to book excursions.

Review by S. Topf

— Exklusive Hostelz.com Ãœbersicht
January 2009

Deine Kommentare

1.7 Average from 42 Ratings

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Wir prÃ¼fen nicht die Richtigkeit der hier verÃ¶ffentlichten BeitrÃ¤geâ€”so nehmt bitte nicht alles allzu wÃ¶rtlich.

Comment by Jenn R., USA

September 2009

Horrible!
There is nothing good to say about this hostel -- staff were sketchy and unfriendly, rooms weren't clean, reservations were disorganized and regularly lost. I've been to twelve countries, some third world, and this was the worst hostel I've ever stayed in! To top it all off, it is horribly infested with bedbugs. My boyfriend is currently covered in about thirty different bites.

Comment by jeff, USA

September 2009

Scary!
Everyone on staff here was definitely on something while I was here. The guy who checked me in was spacey and seemed irritated whenever I would ask a question. He complained that he wasn't even supposed to be working at the moment and kept yelling about this to me and back to his coworkers, who were taking a collective break in the alleyway. He gave me the wrong key to the room, so I had to come back down to the desk to get a new key. I found someone else on duty who shuffled through a basket of unmarked keys and tried them all at the door to my room. I had been in my room about twenty minutes when the same guy who had checked me in initially came through my door and crashed on the bed next to me without a word. Apparently, I had been assigned the room where the people who work there sleep. This would have been ok, I guess, if the people who worked there weren't in such a condition that they slept all the time. The bathrooms were a mess, complete with urine on the floor. I saw a lot of characters in this place and I didn't quite stay long enough to work out which one's did what and which were just residents, but it did feel as though I was the only sober person in the place. I quickly canceled the next three nights that I was to stay in the place and went to crash with a friend in the East Bay. But then I remembered that had I left my computer charger in the room. I called the front desk number at the hostel and was assured that there would be someone, not at the front desk (for whatever reason), but on the third floor where my room was, who would have my key. I went up there to find a person who purported to have many keys, but not the particular one I sought. He asked me if I liked keys. I assented just because I could tell by the look on his face that doing so would end the conversation. I then went down to the front desk to find someone more helpful. I found the guy who had checked me out arguing with his boss, who claimed that he was not supposed to refund me cash (for my canceled room), because I had initially with a credit card. They did not realize that I was the person they were talking about. Their argument subsided, since the customer they were arguing about was gone and there was nothing they could do. I was addressed and asked for the key to my room. The guy who had checked me out and made the mistake with my refund then asked me my name. I told him and showed him my ID, so I could get the key to the room. Luckily, he was so out of his mind that even after looking at my face and my id, he did not realize that I was the person he had just been talking about a moment before. I can say that I got off light. Please do not go to this hostel. It is an anomaly of badness.

Comment by chloe

August 2009

Terrible!
I can't believe that the council has not shut down this hostel. This place is dirty and rundown. I stayed last May or June (can't remember!). I got bitten by bedbugs. The mattresses are covered in black plastic. The windows are broken. The furniture are all second-hand quality. Kitchen has grimy couches. Bathrooms need a fresh coat of paint and new shower nozzles. And the staff! There are only three guys working here, plus the owner who pops in once or twice a day. The staff are overworked and maltreated. They work day and night, seven days a week. The owner has not offered them any rooms to stay in. So one of them sleeps in a little "cell" under the stairs, which he leaves partially open at night (otherwise, he won't be able to breathe). It's not even a room. It is the size of a storage, where you can keep cleaning materials. The other two guys sleep in the kitchen. They hang in there when they're not busy. That's all they have for a living space! The staff are so unprofessional too. One day, one of them went ballistic with another guy. It was so scary. The owner is a grumpy man who probably thinks he is the Donald Trump of San Francisco (Donald is way nicer though). The owner acts with such a sense of authority that is just out of place. He has no sense of courtesy at all. He berates his staff in front of guests (wonder why his staff have no respect for each other). He even ignores people when they talk to him. I can go on and on as to why people shouldn't come here. Could this be why they have increased the prices?

Comment by Fritz Stenger, German

June 2009

Not worth the money
I stayed there for nearly two weeks and met many nice people. I had a private room and I cannot complain about cleanliness of the bathroom. They try to improve and to clean up the place. It needs a lot of repairs. The staff were quite o.k., except the guy who rents out the bikes. He is unpredictable, vulgar, and mad. Beware of him! He should never be allowed to work in such a place, besides I don't think that he has a license for running the bike shop. The owner from Bangladesh does not care much about these problem. There is a great lack of management. You never know who is in charge, since they rotate responsibilities.

Comment by Tallie, USA

April 2009

Very poor hostel
This hostel is dirty and rundown. The common room closes at 11 p.m. which includes the kitchen and internet access. It also doesn't open till 8 a.m. So, at 11 p.m. lights are out and it's in a sketchy alley. There's not much of a positive attitude as the manager is into renting bikes that takes precedence over the rooms and cleanliness. He gets a commission off of these cheap rentals. The common room has someone living in it that appears to be a computer guru that is friends with the owner. Makes me wonder what computer access he's tapping into or even what he's there for. Go somewhere else!

Comment by irishgirl, Irish

September 2008

Great fun
Well stayed here for two nights and had the best night ever in San Fran. The place is so disgusting and dirty but the people staying there are great. We all went drinking together and went out in san fran. Made so many friends but it was an experience. The staff are a bit weird and creepy but other then that it's a story to come home with -- like we found drugs in our room!

Comment by Alan, Ireland

September 2008

The worst place i've ever stayed in
At all costs this place is to be avoided. I have no idea when the pictures of the place on the right were taken, but they bear no similarity to the dive you'll arrive in if you book in here. They completely overfill the place, the dirt of the bedrooms/kitchen/bathrooms is a disgrace. While we were staying there the toilets were overflowing in most of the bathrooms leaving only one you could use. The guys who run the place are weird, they disturb people with their weird comments and their personal hygiene is a joke, one guy wore the same shirt for the four days we were there and you could actually smell him from half the building away. Seems to be next door to some sort of brothel or something too, a "massage parlour" that only opens at midnight. Avoid at all costs!

Comment by Girlswhocare28, Germany

August 2008

Stay away -- worst ever!
This place is just something to keep away from it! First they charged us more than we're supposed to. Check your account, before you sign. Cleanliness -- The hostel is located in the most dirty and smelly areas Downtown. Redlight-business right next to it! They are rats in the hallway, flea bites all over our bodies after sleeping on this sh*tty mattresses! Even the bathroom had mud and mushrooms on the wall! The mushrooms were as big as a child's hand! Most people there don't take showers because it's so dirty. Also the kitchen is so dirty that bugs are everywhere -- what a disgusting place! The rooms are crowded and the windows don't close. Everything is rotten. Even it's one of the cheaper places to stay in SF -- it's not worth the money! We'll send an mail to the hostel inspector to close this place down. Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures of that place to keep you -- traveler friends -- away from this place. All the staff are not clean -- they smell and wear dirty clothes every day. One of them is smoking Marijuana the whole day! Not an hour he doesn't want you to rent a bicycle from him.

Comment by Washi, japan

July 2008

Sh*thole, employes were very stupid
i stayed for one week and during this week a man that worked there tried to sell me drugs and kept sexually harassing my friend who was also staying there. she checked out early because of this. dont stay st this place, its a sh*thole and they also had rats.

Comment by Jo

July 2008

Do not stay here!
Do not stay here! worst hostel Ive ever stayed in. it's run by freaks! dirty, disgusting, and dangerous! got yelled at by one of the idiot staff for using the internet! Just plain dodgy. stay anywhere else before here.

Comment by Jason Ryan, USA

December 2007

Do not go to this hostel
I have been to several hostels in the San Francisco Area. This Hostel is a complete nightmare. The night attendant was cracked out of his mind, the whole hostel is a joke. No sheets, no towels? Do yourself a favor and stay anywhere else but here. If you want to feel safe and secure do not go to this hostel. F*** this place. They wouldn't even refund my money.

Comment by Lisa, Ireland

December 2007

Doesnt deserve even a star
Please do not visit this place or book it, it is really dodgy. unfortunately we only found that out when we arrived and it took half an hour to get keys to our room because the desk guy was from another planet. We prebooked to stay there for a week and thank god we only had to spend one night there. we lost our money but it was worth getting out of there. I haven't never been so scared to go asleep. It's not even cheap. Pictures are not what the place looks like.

Comment by Anna, Canadian

June 2007

Hostile!
I stayed at this hostel with my girlfriend for one night -- one night too many! It is located at the end of a dingy, creepy alley in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Prospective visitors should be warned that the photographs above are not, in my view, representative. If you want a shocking story to tell your friends about your stay in San Fran, the Union Square Backpackers Hostel will definitely deliver. Originally we had reserved a private room for a full week, but upon being "greeted" by a positively hostile person at the front desk and finding no pillows or towels in the room, we decided we'd find other accommodations. I am totally accustomed to staying in hostels and have seen some sketchy places in my travels, but this place takes sketchy to a whole new level. There were feces on the toilet seat (seriously!), and, in the middle of the night, the exposed pipe in our room exploded and water was spraying everywhere. When we asked the guy who reluctantly checked us in if he could keep an eye out for our delayed luggage which would be delivered that evening while we went out to get something to eat, he replied "maybe, if I'm around." He also ranted at length about another guest whom he called "schizophrenic" and "warned" us to stay away from the second floor. He aggressively interrogated us and made us feel super-uncomfortable. We were also creeped out by the fact that there were no women in sight -- all the other guests we saw were men. The hostel is at the end of a dark, dirty alley in the Tenderloin district -- which is reputed to be unsafe (lots of drug use around -- but we didn't have any problems walking around at night) but the sketchiest thing about the neighbourhood (hands down!) is definitely the Union Square Backpackers Hostel. It's adjacent to Union Square (the two neighbourhoods bleed into one another), but "Union Square Backpackers Hostel" is, strictly speaking, a misleading misnomer. In the morning, when we informed another staff person that we were checking out and asked for a refund, he told us he was not "authorized" to give us one and that we'd have to come back when the owner was in. Luckily, the owner telephoned me on my cell later that afternoon. What was bizarre was that he was incredulous about our early check-out, and he wanted to know "what exactly" made us want to cancel our reservations for the remaining nights. He called back two or three other times and was very apologetic, and he refunded my credit card promptly. His reaction was entirely incongruous with the entire experience -- but it was a relief to find that no credit card fraud had been committed (I actually called my credit card company to flag the transaction). To prospective visitors, do not stay here. It's not actually significantly cheaper than other hostels in San Fran and you will probably not be able to tolerate more than a night's stay anyway. Except if you're writing a bad novel and need some outrageous material. To the owner -- the place needs a serious overhaul in every imaginable area from amenities to service, basic cleanliness to staff with basic social skills. You couldn't pay me to stay here and, probably for the rest of my life, I will tell the story of the Union Square Backpackers "Hostile" to the great mirth -- and disbelief -- of friends the world over.

Comment by Anna

January 2007

Me and my friend stayed here whilst traveling round America last summer. We had no choice but to stay there because we wanted to prolong our stay in San Fran (because we loved it so much), but every hostel apart from this one in the city was booked up. Basically, the owner had just had his laptop stolen or something weird and he was flapping around with that so didn't pay that much attention to us. My friend had gone in the day before and he confirmed that he had lots of room for us to stay there. The next day, we arrived and he didn't actually seem to know where he was going to put us. He looked on his computer for a minute or so then decided on a room. On entering this room, it was very clear to us that three of the four beds were already occupied. So he told one of the boys in the room to move ("pack your stuff you move!" were his exact words), then decided to move one of the other people, who wasn't actually in the room. The guy reassured us that he had asked her earlier if she would move and she had said yes. This clearly wasn't the case as all her stuff was still unpacked. So we went out anyway. On our return, trying to get into our door, he shouted at us and told us we weren't in there. We were somewhat confused by this. But he shoved us upstairs anyway, and we slept in the most rickety old beds I have ever seen. Yes, I wasn't expecting four poster beds but ones that weren't falling apart would have been a start. The showers were sick as well, I was kind of scared to go in. We also met some other people who had stayed there. They told us that one of their friends had asked if she could stay for one night and the owner had said yes, she could sleep on the sofa upstairs. Apparently she didn't really want to sleep on the sofa, but at least it wasn't the streets. When she got back later someone else was on the sofa so the guy told her he had a spare mattress and she could sleep on that behind the reception desk. Just weird. I didn't even want to put one star but unfortunately I had to.

Comment by anonyme

October 2006

That's a sh*tty place to stay. The personnel are bad and not helpful. I call many time about a thing that been stole in my room by the personnel (they were the only one that had the key), they found it but they never send it. I had a broken window in the room and everything is dirty!

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