Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) of a hotel, or anything, cheap, run-down, second-rate.

1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 40: They take their trade to rooms in flea-bag hotels.
1962		C. Clausen I Love You Honey, But the Season’s Over 169: If you’re for something, even a fleabag circus, you’re not really out of the race.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 206: We parked in front of a flea-bag hotel.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 132: I booked into a flea-bag hotel in Paddington.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 286: There was [...] enough to get her out of this neighbourhood and into a flea bag hotel on the Upper West Side.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 37: Not too dangerous unless you’re waxing profane about the masses of wetbacks who live in the fleabag hotels there.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 189: So they’d all gone to a fleabag motel on West Flagler.
1998		L. Stringer Grand Central Winter (1999) 245: Booking ourselves into a fleabag hotel room.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 155: She was married to this fleabag circus owner.
2007		N. McCall Them (2008) 135: He checked into a fleabag motel.

2. of an animal, mangy.

1987

W.T. Vollmann You Bright and Risen Angels (1988) 326: The smell of an old fleabag cat.