Staying at a decent hotel can be a luxurious experience–whether it's during a vacation or a business trip.
It's a temporary home away from home, and the change of scenery from the confines of your bedroom at home is like a breath of fresh air.
Curious to hear from hotel employees about the bizarre incidences that have transpired on their watch, Redditor Slider-678 asked:
"Hotel workers, what is your craziest story?"
If you think the cleaning staff is expected to always go above and beyond by doing more than just turning down the bed, you have another think coming.
Why I Quit My Job
"I worked in a decent hotel in college, was the night auditor. One night the police came in and went directly to a room around 2am. They escorted a prostitute out and asked to speak to the manager."
"After they were done speaking with my manager the officer handed me the phone and she told me to go in and clean up the room. I never made beds or did any of that so I wasn't sure exactly what she wanted. I went to the room and there was trash everywhere. There were uncapped syringes, used packages that had contained drugs and general filth everywhere. I called the manager back to tell her that I wasn't touching anything because of the uncapped syringes. They were literally all over the place and I wasn't going to pick up piles of clothes or move blankets."
"The manager said that if I didn't clean the room I was fired. I said fine, you have a half an hour to get here because I am leaving. I was the only one there overnight. As she pulled into the parking lot a short time later I walked over to my car, didn't even wait for her to get inside."
– EntrepreneurNo1145
Slow Attacker
"Working at a luxury hotel, I once got a call to remove a snail from a guests room as it was 'coming after them' and that they were 'afraid for their young child.'”
– Additional-Car2163
Rage is real.
Deescalating Violence
"I worked night shift, and was the only employee in the entire hotel from 11pm to 6am. Around 3 am I get a few calls about a fight in an upstairs hallway. I grab a pair of scissors and tuck it up my sleeve and make my way upstairs to see what is going on. When I get there there are 2 guys having a full on brawl. I'm 6,2 and very broad shouldered, but these guys were taller and ripped as hell."
"As I approached a 3rd guy, just as large as the other 2, comes out of a room with a knife yelling 'get the f'k off him'. I stop a ways away and just shout at them. They all stop immediately and look at me. I'm getting ready to run for it when they all just deflate. Knife guy drops the knife, the others let go of eachother, they all hang their head, and one mumbles 'I'm sorry.' under his breath."
"They looked like a bunch of toddlers who had just gotten caught stealing cookies. I told them they would have to leave right now, or I would call the police, and they all just nodded. They followed me onto the elevator, and spent the whole time apologizing and pouting while I escorted them out. I have never seen a situation go from 100 to 0 so fast."
– Vypernorad
Standoff Over A Girl
"Some guest was in the parking lot, waving a gun around & threatening to shoot up the place, resulting in a tense stand-off with cops for about an hour before they finally took him down (alive). The impetus behind the whole thing? He, his buddy, & the buddy's wife had gone out that night with the intent that the wife was gonna let the gun guy f'k her up the a**, but she got cold feet at the last minute and they locked him out of the room when he got mad. So, yeah, he was so drunk and wanted to tap that a** so badly that he decided to threaten a whole hotel."
– throwtheclownaway20
Kitchen Brawl
"High strung cook had an argument with a-type bistro attendant. It just kept escalating to a pull-apart brawl when a kitchen knife got involved. The pair crashed through the swinging door and was rolling on the carpet when the regional manager just happened to be walking in. Cops were called, I think both got fired or arrested."
– The68Guns
These items left behind by former hotel room occupants are not your everyday pick of the litter.
The New Employee
"I have a friend that owns a small motel just off a highway. I would hang out with him and chat on some late nights. One night, he got a call that one of the guest heard a loud crash in the room next door. Checked the computer and saw that the room was unoccupied. Friend and I go to check it out. We knock and there is no answer. He opens the door and there was a cat in the room."
"It knocked over a lamp and smashed it. It was super friendly and came right to us. We took it back to the office and looked at the room records. The prior person that was in the room abandoned the cat when he checked out three days earlier. He was already on the other side of the country when we called him, and he said he was not coming back for the cat."
"My friend took ownership of the cat and now she is the motel cat. She walks all around the property and takes care of any mice or critters. She even has her picture on the wall as one of the 'employees'. Not sure why the maid service did not see it when the room was being cleaned. We think that the vacuum scared the cat and she hid somewhere. Still was a dick move of the old owner to leave the cat behind."
– mrsheikh
"Someone left their boa at ours. Who knows where it was hiding when the housekeepers cleaned the room, but when the next guests checked in and crawled into the bed, it was under the pillows. It scared them SO bad. We had to call animal control to come get it."
– bittyitty
Is It Alive?
"Found one of those black fuzzy caterpillars in a room. I carried it outside, oh so carefully not to lose it. Put it down on sidewalk and it didn't move. I picked it back up to make sure it was alive and realized it was someone's fake eye lash."
– Love-Dizzy
People are wild.
A Whiff Of Senior Sex
"When I was 15 I was a bus boy at a local resort (Little America, Cheyenne, WY). Occasionally, the restaurant I worked in would ask one of the bus staff to deliver room service to one of the rooms, they always asked male staff for safety reasons."
"On one occasion I was asked to deliver a tray to a room. I took the tray to the room and a scantily clad woman answered the door. I never went in the room but could see there were about 8-9 men and woman in their 60’s-70’s (almost all of them nude) in the room. . . even at 15 I knew the room smelled like sex. I remember I was tipped well."
"Went back to work, no one ever asked how things went and I never really mentioned it to anyone because I didn’t think anyone would believe me."
– wyoflyboy68
Ask And Ye Shall Recieve
"Probably not the best story to share on politically-correct Reddit, but I also worked room service in my late teens. There was a female waitress in the restaurant that constantly complained about the males-only policy for room service. After weeks of being chewed on, the hotel manager finally relented and let her carry every other order. She lasted 2 weeks before she said no more and quit doing room service."
"I saw my fair share of sexcapades, but she was getting the full-frontal nude creepers ordering one drink at a time. Poor girl wasn't prepared for all of that. This would have been late 1980's."
– PantherChicken
Sure, a getaway in a nice hotel is always something to look forward to.
But based on some of these stories, ignorance is bliss.
That doesn't keep me from peeling off the bed covers that are presumably never washed and keeping my shoes on in the rooms I've booked for vacations.
After all, who knows what remains trapped in all of the fabrics and draperies?
If only hotel walls could speak.
Hotel Employees Describe The Worst Thing They've Ever Discovered In A Room After Check Out
People are gross. That's something you learn very quickly whenever you work a public-facing job, especially in the hospitality industry.
I recently stayed in a low-end hotel with lovely staff. I was comfortable and slept well. I made friends with the manager and I hung out in the lobby while she told me stories about some of the nasty people with nasty habits who'd come and go. Safe to say she'd seen a lot of gross things in hotel rooms in her day.
People shared their stories after Redditor ThorBjorn asked the online community,
"What's the worst thing you've seen in a room after someone has checked out?"
"A blonde wig..."
"A blond wig filled with poo, hidden on the top of the wardrobe."
TheDoctorYouDeserve
I was wondering where I left that, sorry!
"I was
"I was on a business trip to Lansing, MI several years ago, maybe back in 2005 or so. I walked into my hotel room and a dark splotch on the wall caught my attention. It turned out to be black mold that crept into the bathroom ceiling. I stood under it for a moment stunned by it. When I turned and looked at the bed, the comforter was covered in blood."
"The blood was dried and set in on the comforter. It looked like nobody had been in the hotel room since someone was murdered on the bed - this is what it looked like. I have no idea. Looking closer, there was dried blood on the carpet and splattered on the wall."
"I took my things and went back to the check in desk and told them there was something very wrong, told them about the mold and the dried blood everywhere. They told me they didn't have any other rooms and didn't seem concerned about the dried blood."
"Roomless, I was sitting there in their lobby at 10PM not sure what to do since I had nowhere to stay. But that was a lot of blood. The longer I sat there the longer I realized something was seriously very f**ked up. So I called the cops and reported it. The police showed up in minutes."
"They got access to the room. The desk staff glared at me as if I had committed some sort of terrible affront to decency the entire time. I was asked to give a statement, which I did."
"Having done my part, I was outside trying to find other hotels to call to check for availability. Call after call, booked hotel after booked hotel. A woman eventually walked over to me and started chatting me up. The short of it is that she was a sex worker and offered to take me in and show me "a good time until the sun rises."
"I wound up going back to the airport and flying home after all of that."
FluidWarthog1613
This story took me on a journey.
An actual journey.
"There was a larger lady..."
"There was a larger lady in the room. When she checked out she told the front desk she made a mess in the room and she apologized, I was the housekeeping manager. When we went into the room I’ve never seen so much s*it in my life."
"It was on the bed, all over the floor, on the bathroom counter, all over the toilet, on the walls, and everywhere in the shower. Me and the housekeeper both start gagging so bad. She told me I could write her up if I wanted to but she wasn’t cleaning it."
"Ended up having to call one of those biohazard companies in."
samiam871
When the biohazard unit gets involved, you know it's serious.
"This one guy had checked out super suddenly and it baffled us as he had paid for a week or so. The housekeeper went up there and immediately called me to come up to the room. We found several POUNDS of shrooms and whippet cannisters."
"But more interesting was that this man had taken EVERYTHING in the room and crafted a pyramid in the center of it straight to the roof. The only thing holding it together was pure tension. Anything that wasn’t bolted down was in there. Pretty impressive honestly."
[deleted]
Sounds like he was on quite the trip and then frightened himself!
"He was on the last little..."
"A dead guy. He was on the last little bit of life he had left. Turns out he had some horrible blood cancer or something and he decided to go on vacation."
Arrowtica
This is so sad. Sorry you had to witness that.
"Tore..."
"Tore the flimsy towel rack apart and made a pipe out of it by stuffing wool or something."
Black38
I feel like we have to respect the ingenuity at least... but cleaning that up does not sound fun.
"Feces floor to ceiling..."
"Feces floor to ceiling and a number of $10,000 bill bands. I still don't know how to make heads or tails of it."
TheMrBurke
You lost me at "feces floor to ceiling."
I don't ever want to see that.
"Room perfectly ok..."
"Room perfectly ok except for a condom stuffed with s*it on the bed. Why? And how?"
Really_McNamington
Do you really want to know the answer to that question?
"One of our night maintenance guys got called up to a room to find he was supposed to help a guy who had got a Perrier bottle stuck on his penis. He did not help."
Really_McNamington
Don't want to know how they did that. Noooope. Sounds painful.
If these stories put you off of working in hotels forever, we understand. The hospitality industry in general? Yeah, we get that, too. It's not easy.
Have some stories of your own? Tell us more in the comments below!
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
House Guests Reveal The Rudest Thing Their Host Has Done To Them
Rules of hospitality aren't anywhere near as big of a thing now as they used to be, the ancient Greeks and Romans had a definite lead there, but most people are still familiar with how to be a good host, right? Apparently not, it seems.
Reddit user u/Azzizzi asked:
"As a guest in someone's home, what is the most impolite thing a host has ever done to you?"