By David Slone
Times-Union
WARSAW — Deluxe Inn, 2575 E. Center St., Warsaw, was shut down by the city of Warsaw and the Kosciusko County Health Department Monday for a bug infestation that’s been problematic for at least several months.
At 9 a.m. today, representatives of the Warsaw Building & Planning Department, Kosciusko County Health Department, Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory, CARES and Warsaw Police Department informed the manager and employees of the temporary closure and that everyone was being evicted.
Tenants had until the end of the business day to find other accommodations.
The representatives then went door to door of the motel to inform the people staying there that they had to find other accommodations by the end of the day today. Notice signs were posted at each motel room stating, “This building or structure is in unsafe condition and must not be used or entered by anyone without the written permission of the building department.”
County records indicate the property is owned by Maharaj4 LLC, Champaign, Ill., with a sale date of July 21, 2025.
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Fire Marshal Jeremy Williams explained that the Warsaw Building Department was temporarily condemning the building, in collaboration with the health department and himself.
“Hoarding living conditions and then a bug infestation are the main reasons,” he said. “We’ve been coming out here since the beginning of December, been out here four or five times following up on it and things have not gotten any better.”
He said people were living in the motel as it offered long-term stays. The motel has 48 rooms, but a number of them were vacant today.
“We have our CARES (Community Assistance Resources and Emergency Services) girls coming over, too, to help with placement and then the homeless shelter also has been notified,” Williams said.
Once the motel gets all of the rooms cleared up, cleaned out and a good, proper pest spray – which Williams estimated may take a month or two – the Building Department and Williams will have to clear it before it can reopen. It has to be proven that the motel has no bugs in the entire facility.
“It started out as a complaint, beginning of December, to my office about non-working smoke alarms so we came out together to do inspections, and this is what we found,” Williams said. The complaint was lodged by a person staying in the motel. “Then we started following up four or five times at the beginning of December and here we are at this point.”
Christina, who declined to provide her last name, said she’s been living at the motel going on two weeks.
“There were some circumstances that brought me back – I used to live in Fort Wayne so I came back here because my family’s here,” she said. “My brother had told me about this place that was pretty reasonable, so I came here.”
She said she saw one cockroach, but not more than that. She reported it to the front desk because she didn’t want to live with bugs.
“He came down and sprayed really, really good, but I haven’t seen any since then, but I’m definitely going to check everything really, really good before I start putting it back into my vehicle,” Christina said.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she had already paid for the second week so she hoped she’d get a refund.
“I was only being here temporarily anyway, but I guess it’s really temporary now,” she stated.
Another resident, who declined to provide his name, said he’s been living in the hotel for three to four months. Up until this morning, he said he hadn’t seen but a couple dead ones.
“But this morning I saw three live ones when I was moving stuff around for this supposed inspection,” he said.
He had no clue what he was going to do as far as a place to stay going forward.
“No clue. It’s what I’m trying to work out right now. Having to change my work schedule around, have my boss on the phone right now. I don’t have anything. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Luckily, they’re supposedly going to refund our money since – how much that is, I don’t know – and go from there. I get paid in a couple days so I’ll be able to figure something out, but I don’t know where and I don’t know how,” he stated.
Deluxe Inn Manager Shawnna – who declined to provide her last name – said she’s only been the manager since August.
“This bug problem has been here since before these people bought it,” she said. “I was looking back in the records and everything to look it up and stuff, and these bugs have been here for at least over a year. So this is not something that just happened. The place has been infested.”
She said she’s been spraying every week to no avail “because it’s just so far gone.”
Warsaw Building Inspector Angela Lundy said they understood the plight of some of the motel tenants.
“That’s why we’re hoping they can get their refunds and they can get in The Days Inn. The Bowen Center and Fellowship (Missions) are both aware of the situation, so they can hopefully help them. As temporary as this is, it has to happen, so that’s why we’re asking if you know family and friends, anybody in the neighborhood or in the vicinity that you can stay with, but they just can’t stay here. It’s not sanitary. It’s not clean. A lot of fire hazards,” she said.
Lundy said Herb from Arab Termite & Pest Control “told us that he’s been here before, before it changed hands, the crop migrants, that used to work in the crops, would stay here long term, they would bring bugs in with them, and it would just kind of become a perpetual issue. But as far as living conditions go, it promotes these bugs. And Herb told them, ‘You’ve got to get everything out of the room so I can properly spray.’ Well, you’ve got people living here for months and months, and they’ve got months of stuff and they can’t or won’t be able to get it all out. So, hopefully, this is the way to do it and then they can come back in, hopefully.”
Lundy said the goal is not to shut down the Deluxe Inn completely, but to make sure it’s a safe and clean option for people.
“They’re paying money to stay here and it’s not cheap, by any means. It’s a little over $200 a week to stay here. They deserve to live in a place with no bugs and smoke alarms and means of egress and stuff like that,” Lundy said.
As the Deluxe Inn is near other hotels, she said she and Williams will definitely look into them to make sure the problem hasn’t spread out.
