Trendy NYC bathhouse plagued by grime, mold and worms, ex-workers say — as claims of pool infections go viral

Former workers at a trendy New York City spa claim the bitcoin-fueled spot is mold-ridden, worm-infested, and overheated — allegedly leaving them sick and traumatized.

The complaints from three ex-staffers, detailed to The Post in recent interviews, come in the wake of viral claims by Reddit users who said they contracted urinary tract infections after visiting Bathhouse’s Williamsburg location. 

“I noticed the hot tub and body temp tub were looking kinda dirty and gross,” one user wrote. “I thought it would be fine, but then I ended up with a UTI.” 

Bathhouse opened in Williamsburg in 2019 and expanded to Flatiron after staving off pandemic doldrums. It offers massages, scrubs and access to thermal pool amenities, saunas and steam rooms for up to $180, according to its website.

The sauna and massage spot, which is heated using bitcoin mining, attracts up to 4,000 schvitzers a week, according to owners Travis Talmadge and Jason Goodman — who dismissed the stomach-turning accusations as completely bogus.

Most of the wild claims have been targeted at the location in hipster Brooklyn — and video obtained by the Post showed small worms crawling on the floor of the place. The critters, a former employee said, would allegedly “slide out from underneath the walls” after water was thrown on the ground of scrub rooms.

Bathhouse maintained that the worms are a part of the grime that comes from professional scheduled quarterly clean” of pipes to proactively prevent muck from coming through their drains.

Seventeen complaints made to 311 about mold and indoor air quality since 2022 have been found to have no substantiating evidence after repeated inspections, the Department of Health said in a statement to The Post.

Bathhouse also passed a subsequent DOH inspection Tuesday afternoon, according to records provided by Bathhouse.

“We’ve never had a mold issue, we invest so much money and so much time in our design of these spaces,” Talmadge said in an interview.

The spa is also suing one of the former employees for defamation after that person posted claims of mold and poor working conditions on TikTok, according to a recent court filing.

The company is seeking $100,000 in damages from the former employee, records indicate.

Still, former employees said they weren’t shocked by the Reddit rumors — alleging they witnessed grimy conditions in the sauna areas and patrons having sex in the pools and locker rooms.

“There would be roaches that would crawl out, like I would have to distract a client from looking up because there would be a gigantic roach crawling up the brick wall,” claimed one ex-worker, who was a scrubbing technician at the Williamsburg location from September 2021 to December 2024.

The former employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, also said she would have to spray fragrance “every 10 seconds because it smelled terrible like something was rotting.”

It caused her to feel nauseous and lightheaded, as well as experience eczema flare-ups and asthma symptoms, she claimed.

“I would have anxiety attacks before coming into work so many days… literally between clients, I would have to go and get fresh air to breathe because there’s no ventilation.”

What made working worse, the employee claimed, was “sexually inappropriate” customers who would expect “happy endings” from scrub technicians and masturbate in sessions. She claimed the problem was so frequent there was “no point” in complaining about it every single time it happened.

“It was small people working on a ton of clients with the sexual harassment… I was having body spasms, full body spasms, throwing up, straight up panic attacks… my health was declining so rapidly and I was only 29.”

Her health began to decline rapidly, and after calling out due to suffering a miscarriage in December 2024, she was promptly fired without severance pay, the former employee alleged.

Bathhouse management maintains that the employee was terminated due to other performance complaints, and was not aware that the employee had a miscarriage.

When asked about sexual harassment in the workplace, Goodman claimed there is a “zero tolerance policy,” and that anyone found making staff uncomfortable is asked to “leave immediately.”

Another former Bathhouse worker, a front-of-house and customer service employee who started at the Flatiron location in January 2024, said he allegedly observed a “decline in the upkeep” of facilities, including a “pungent” odor inside the showers and fratty behavior among patrons.

“I worked in the men’s locker room,” said Shaquille Mualimmak, 29. “Walking halfway through, there was just this really rancid pungent odor, and I was like, what the hell? Upon discovery, I noticed it was the shower area. It just smelled like feet and mildew.”

Mualimmak also claimed he observed patrons engaging in sexual activity in the pool and women’s locker room areas. 

“I was like sex in the bathhouse, that’s crazy! Other times, there would be people making out in the pool, things of that nature,” he said.

Mualimmak alleged that attendants would sometimes give out warnings to PDA heavy patrons, but felt it was a place where “people had the ability to do what they wanted, just to a certain extent.”

“I feel like it was definitely a clubhouse. It was a place for people to do everything they wanted to do,” he said.

Talmadge and Goodman said the pools at Bathhouse are controlled by a computer that continuously monitors the chlorine and pH levels in the water in real time, and used UV filters to kill bacteria — making the environment highly unlikely to cause a urinary tract infection, according to their knowledge.

Their facilities also receive deep cleanings from midnight to 8 a.m. and visits from an exterminator a whopping eight times a month, according to documents provided by Bathhouse.

Another employee, who wished not to be identified, worked as a scrub technician from September 2023 to December 2024, where she allegedly witnessed mold in the hammam and tropical sauna rooms, and in a drain near a hot tub and water fountain.

“It wasn’t until this Reddit thread popped up that I felt more compelled to start telling my side of the story and start talking about the business,” she said.

“Some of us did wear masks, especially if their respiratory tract started to flare up, which would happen to most people… we would spray essential oils on a towel and then fan the towel around,” she said, describing how employees would cope with odors.

The former employee said she eventually resigned after she was allegedly slowly taken off the schedule when she transferred to the Flatiron location.

“I actually liked my job. I liked what I did. I just wanted to feel like after working there for a year and some change, to feel like I actually mattered, just to learn that I didn’t,” she said of the phone call she made to quit her gig.

“I told him [management representative] that I felt it was a lot of racial discrimination… I did describe what happened to other workers who came to me, who so happened to also be black, and it happened to them as well.

“This manager said, and I literally quote, ‘I don’t think it’s racial discrimination because the owner is married to a dark skinned woman, so that would have been nipped in the bud.’ I was silent because he literally took my experience and threw it out of the window and said well, you know, he has a black wife,” the former employee claimed.

Goodman and Talmadge adamantly denied the allegations of discrimination, stating that 60% of their 350 staff members are racial minorities and that they promote “incredibly diverse and very celebratory” hiring practices. In court papers, the company described allegations of racial discrimination as “demonstrably false.”

They also expressed former employees’ allegations as coming from three “disgruntled workers” who did not represent the experiences of their other staff members.

“Our employees are awesome, and so whatever their [former employees] agendas are, if it’s their 15 minutes of fame or whatever, these are not true statements,” Talmadge said.

The former employee expressed she still felt it was necessary to speak out about her experience at Bathhouse, despite allegations of being a disgruntled worker.

“When you are facing these mini tyrants who are so drunk off their Instagram power or bitcoin power or whatever it is, they have a force behind them… I really took a chance with speaking up and saying anything,” the worker said.