Gagged!
Not a maid, but I worked as a maintenance man and had to clean out apartments. One apartment I had to clean had a refrigerator stuffed full of food because the occupants had been evicted. Unfortunately, the electric company had shut off the electricity so the food had been rotting for well over a month. It was the most god awful smell I've ever encountered in my life. Rotting fish, rotting chicken, and a lot of stuff that was so rotten you couldn't even tell what it had originally been. However, the boss said I had to do it so I did it.
I lost control and vomited several times while trying to scrape the goop out. I sprayed the fridge with strong cleaning chemicals and spent an hour scrubbing the hell out of it but I couldn't get the smell out. I finally gave up and told my boss about it and she insisted on seeing for herself. She walked into the apartment, gagged at the smell, and told me to throw the fridge out without even looking inside. All that effort and puking for nothing! Mange-Tout
Not a Charmin moment....
GiphyNot a maid staff but used to work front desk at a hotel in Myrtle Beach. So many wild stories from that job... Once we had a customer check in late at night & came to the front desk to complain about a large chocolate stain on their sheet in their made bed. After some checking turns out the maid that cleaned the room, it was her last day on the job & she had decided to wipe her butt with the sheets & then make the bed. The customers ended up with a free stay. jettisonbombardier
Stays in Vegas.
I can tell you one room I was in where someone set a cleaning trap.
Laying in bed with my wife, she felt a piece of paper down by her feet. It said "they don't change the dirty sheets in the room, check out the blood stains and pubic hair down here" which was both their.
Called the front desk and we were moved to suite in the other tower of this casino hotel in Vegas. scott60561
Luckily the guest wasn't there.
Not a maid but I used to install wifi systems at hotels across the midwest. The job required us to go into every other room and install an access point. One of the jobs was at an extended stay, and we only had one more room to finish. However the guest was being difficult and didn't want to let us into the room. According to hotel staff the guest hadn't let any of the maids into the room in several weeks. Finally the Assistant GM had enough and escorted us up to the room to let us in. Luckily the guest wasn't there.
It was one of the worst things I'd ever seen. Trash and cloths everywhere, cigarette butts all over the place. It appeared there was a dog living in there, as there was dog poop everywhere as well. The smell was horrendous. It looked like something you would see on one of those hoarder shows. We hurried up and got our AP installed and got out of there. GarageguyEve
Got Gloves?
GiphyNot maid, worked front desk:
My coworker picked something up in the hallway and brought it to the front desk asking what it was. It was a butt-plug and he was holding it with his bare fingers. polkam0n
Flinging Poo!
Another "not maid staff, but..." response: I used to work security at a resort. The worst that I witnessed was the aftermath of a couple getting into an argument. A husband and wife were drunk and taking a bath together, and then got into an argument. The wife pooped in the bath, picked up the turds, and threw them at her husband like a monkey. Then the husband accidentally stepped on one and smushed it into the carpet. I felt terrible for the 5 housekeepers that had to clean it up, and even worse for the couple's 2 kids that were in the room. Zed89
Atrocious.
GiphyMy fiancé's uncle owns a motel and I'll help out during the summer and there have been a few rooms , one was this midwestern family who literally would use the swimming pool in jeans and what not, only asked for towels the whole time except for the day before they were supposed to check out and it was such an atrocity in the room, fried rice and blunt guts all over the floor/ bureau / the bathroom sink as well as the whole bathroom being stained purple from hair dye, literal baby poop/pee soaked sheets and pillows festering in a corner sooo we told the front office and they got kicked out. The people were atrocious especially for having 3 children ranging from like 14-6 with them. MDizzleee
Puker....
I'm a housekeeper at a 3 star hotel nothing fancy but not a motel. Young and need money for a new car I hate it but gotta do what I gotta do. Recently since its the holidays so many single people renting rooms and drinking loads of liquor (and eating cupcakes??? Idk why) and puking... everywhere. I don't expect tips but come on if you vomit please leave me something it takes 40 mins to clean that room they're so trashed. The smell is awful and they'll smile at me to check out and walk away I go in and its just pink/orange puke everywhere. Its depressing job for a young person I'm going to be honest but its a job so I'm thankful. pizzauwuw
Those Pearly Whites.
Not maid staff but I did general maintenance at a 5 star hotel in Ontario Canada. We had a room that the toilet would continuously plug up after a few uses. We would dump drain cleaner down it, plunge it, snake it, nothing seemed to work. So I remove the toilet to see what the blockage was. In the bottom of the toilet, caked in poop was someone's false teeth. An entire top plate with all the teeth.
Freaked me out a bit to see teeth looking back at me from a toilet. I gave them to management and they were able to determine who they belonged to and return them to their rightful owner. We assumed that during a drinking bender the owner must have been puking something fierce to loose his teeth like that. dukunt
2 liters worth....
SIL was a housekeeper in a hotel which got a lot of business through organized vacations. Tourists would get dropped off by a coach. The coach driver would get a room too. Well, she walked into one coach driver's room, and she found the bed thoroughly soaked with urine. On a bad day, a guy might pee close to half a liter of fluid. This guy must've peed like a full 2 liters worth. Must've had some serious distended bladder issue. It was soaked through to the bed frame and leaking onto the floor below.
They had to wrap the mattress and throw it out. GrammatonYHWH
Serial Killer Toys.
GiphyMy ex worked as cleaning staff at a crappy motel in Florida. A few years ago she found a bunch of those realistic looking baby dolls and a small pile of used condoms in the bathtub - all had been partially burned/melted. Ejgee
Traumatized....
I was a line cook at a hotel back in the day and I remember this poor maid came out of the service elevator screaming bloody murder. She was from Haiti and was praying and crying at the same time. Everyone is asking what is wrong but she was hysterical. We later found out she went in to turn down a room and found the guest in the tub with his wrists opened. Apparently there was blood everywhere and lots of it. Poor woman. She quit that day. Sirnando138
Days Out.
Had a friend that worked cleaning a Days Inn right off the interstate by a truck stop. She had some messed up stories. Most wrapped around bizarre places to find used condoms, like behind the TV or on the windowsill behind a curtain. She made it about 5 months. six_mpossible_things
The Aftermath.
I walked in to the aftermath of an attempted suicide. A man had slit his wrists and drank LOTS of vodka. We called the ambulance and they took him away, still alive. The mattress was purplish brown with blood and pee, it soaked right through 2 'waterproof' mattress covers. We didn't even try to wash the sheets and covers, just stuffed them in black trash bags and chucked em in the dumpster.
The hotel owners wanted to try to salvage the mattress, so we stood it up and sprayed it down with all sorts of disinfectants and let it air out, but no dice. They even had to remove the carpet in the room because it held onto the sick blood smell.
UPDATE: I just got home from another fun day at the same hotel. I scrubbed lots of vomit out of a bed skirt this afternoon. Thanks for everyone being so horrified/interested in my hotel tale. SallySmallpox
With Friends.
A couple of friends of mine had to clean a room here in town after a suicide. Guy blew his head off with a shotgun. Congealed blood, chunks of brain and bone.
For what it's worth, they successfully sued the owners of the motel afterwards, but I don't think the owners ever faced criminal charges for improperly disposing of biological material, which is crazy. Ashybuttons
Help our Vets.
Elderly Vietnam Veteran rented a room for the sole purpose of having a private space in which to commit suicide by overdosing on pills. His family found out a bout his plan and called the police, they arrived just in time to find him, and the room, covered in poop and vomit. He survived.
I was a scared young girl.
GiphyMy first 'real' job was stripping beds in a small motel at the age of 14. I would start a bit before the maids so that they just had to remake the beds. Easy enough job for a 14 year old.
One room was a stay over and I knocked on the door. Guy answered and I asked if he wanted service that day. He was in poop stained briefs. He said yes, he wanted service. I told him I just strip the beds and I could come back later with the maid and get it all done at once. He told me to just come in then and strip the bed and dirty towels out. So I did. When I went to leave I told him the maid would be to his room after a bit to give fresh towels and make the bed. He got angry and wanted me to make the bed right then.
Mind you there were nasty dirty underwear next to the bed and in the bathroom along with a ton of dirty magazines on the other bed.
I explained again that I don't make the beds, just strip the rooms. I was a scared young girl. He got angrier and I dipped out of the room fast to go talk to the head housekeeper. She was supposed to tell me that morning before I got started to stay away from that room and forgot to pass on that info. So since she screwed up she went with me and the maid and we had to make his bed and put in fresh towels while he was sitting there staring at us in his dirty nasty underwear. WyoGirl79
Hopefully someone isn't missing a kidney.
My Dad works in the hotel industry for a major chain and showed me pictures of what they thought was some sort of crime scene at first. The sheets were all bloody and stained and there was transfer on the sheets from a person of what looked like dotted lines of magic marker. They think someone used the room for a back-alley plastic surgery of some kind. The police were called, but I don't know what happened after that. Hopefully someone isn't missing a kidney. Herpmancer
College Days...
My college would rent out dorm rooms at a low cost and students could work as cleaning staff. I did it one year and decided it was not worth it. We had a baseball team stay at one of the dorms and they spit chewing tobacco and sun flower shells everywhere. You would lift the trash bag out of the can and it would have a puddle of chew spit at the bottom of the can. One of them also wrote Forget you in poop on the wall of the bathroom.
Edit: It was only during the summer not the full year. Protists
Meow.
GiphyNot a maid staff, but I once checked in at a small motel and was greeted by the feline employee when I entered my room. I thought that was cute until I saw the welcoming present she left on my pillow, a bloody dead bat. purplejackhammer26
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/