30 Worst Things People Ever Found In Hotel Rooms
Down below are stories from Redditors working at the front desk and behind the cleaning cart in hotels, swapping hotel horror stories about the worst things they ever found on the job.
1.
A syringe under a mattress, AFTER I felt a prick on the end of my finger. I was tucking in a sheet under the bed, and there were actually two uncovered "insulin" needles under there. I got rushed to hospital; hepatitis shots and a tetanus shot, two different hiv prevention medication for a month, monthly blood tests for about a year. I'm fine, and it barely stuck me in truth, but I was already afraid of needles and disease I still feel traumatized. I was not going to post at all, but I've always wondered if there was anything else I should have done. The doctors assured me that they were more precautious than necessary.
2.
Someone pooped in the nightstand. It had been there long enough to dry out, so it took nearly an hour to scrub it clean. Another room had bloody menstrual pads stuck all over the walls at random.
3.
Worked at an upscale ski resort. One family let their toilet-training kid pee behind the toilet and under the sink throughout their whole visit, then put our white towels on top of it to "help clean up the mess." Whole place smelled like a freakin rhino enclosure. Ruined the towels.
4.
Two worst experiences I had to witness were:A couple came to the desk early in the AM, they clearly had been in an all out fist fight. They were a cash paying customer and all they said was, “sorry, we got in a fight, there is blood in the room, we are HIV positive.” Then they took off. Room was an absolute horror show, had to hire special cleaners to come gut the room and ended up replacing basically everything in the room. Room was OOC for almost a year. Same hotel, we had some wards of the state types staying. Worst were a couple with a newborn. They couldn’t afford basically anything, so made the decision to use our towels as diapers. The state wouldn’t let us kick them out and they were just taking the towels off the carts. Ended up having to evict them from the hotel as they had been there long enough to establish residency...
5.
One of my favorite hotel stories (not a room, but the pool):It’s late evening, and a woman comes angrily in to our lobby from the pool with three children and says, “You guys need to do something about what’s going on out there,” and gestures to the pool area. I look at her inquisitively and she just says, “Go look, you’ll see.”I walk outside and it’s pretty immediately clear the couple in the hot tub are “discreetly” having sex. I approach just enough to get their attention and say, “Hi guys, I know everyone’s here to have a good time tonight, but we got a complaint about some hot and heavy activity in the hot tub.” They’re clearly intoxicated, but apologize and say it will stop. A few minutes later, the phone rings. It’s the woman who complained before calling from her room which faces the pool.
“They’re still at it. You need to do something. Children are staying in this hotel.”I go back outside and sure enough, now that the spectators are gone, they’re f*****g it out in the hot tub. I go back out, tell them to get out. They start giving me the story: it’s their anniversary, they’re very sorry, we won’t have any more problems with them, etc etc. I foolishly let them stay in the hot tub.10 minutes later: phone rings. “Seriously!!?” Same lady. I look out the window, they’re both totally naked. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ve warned them, I’m calling the police. Police arrive and head out to the pool. The officer handles it like a pro. He’s very nice, let’s them know that it’s inappropriate, but he doesn’t want to ruin what’s clearly a fun weekend for them both, but they need to go to their room and not come out for the rest of the night.
They are to stay in their room until tomorrow morning. No excuses. The couple thanks him for his understanding and promises they’ll behave and stay in their room. The officer and I wind up chatting and laughing about it all and he asks if he can grab a cup of coffee in our lobby while he fills out his report. Of course he can. He’s sitting in the Lobby, I’m back to work, and I hear him say, “Oh, you’ve got to be f*****g kidding me!!” I’m shocked at the broken quietness as I see him jump up and exit the Lobby. Right to the hot tub, where the same couple is back in the hot tub making out. (I can only assume they took the stairs at the end of the hall out to the parking lot and around to the pool.)Arrested them both. They came back Monday afternoon (they were arrested on Friday night) to collect their property.
6.
A bachelorette party came through and after they left the next night we had a new rule that charges a $400 glitter fee. But I mean you couldn't see the floor so much glitter. It's been a few years and you can probably still find glitter in the carpet throughout the hotel.
7.
Worst to clean up, not because it was gross, but because it was annoying and time consuming, was popcorn. A baseball team stayed in a couple rooms and I guess they had those like caramel popcorn balls? That they had just thrown all over the room. At the walls, furniture. It stuck to the carpet and was almost impossible to vacuum.
9.
I was roadtripping alone, and decided to support the local economy of this small town I was stopping in and stay in a small family-owned motel instead of a chain. It was obviously infested with bedbugs. Obvious... the next morning, that is. (I arrived late at night and went straight to bed.)The worst thing was that I was moving myself out to college and had all my worldly possessions in the car with me. ALL of my clothing, ALL of my bedding, the few pieces of furniture I was bringing... Fortunately, isolating everything that had been in that room in trashbags, and buying bedbug spray immediately prevented it from infesting everything I owned. But all the time I spent anticipating the worst got me hugely stressed out.
10.
Old couple checked out and left a huge box of sex toys. Not that bad right?We keep items for 90 days, hotel gets first dibs after that (say it's an iPad that would be good for something) then whoever found it gets second dibs, then GM, then it's whoever wants it. Head house keeper kept them locked in her desk bc she wanted first dibs and was scared someone else would take them.
11.
Woman with mysophobia (fear of germs) stayed with us. She never let the cleaning ladies into the room as she preferred to clean it herself. One day she leaves to go out and removes the do disturb sign. Maid calls down and says the room has a strong chemical odor and found bags of pee and poop in the drawers.
12.
It was a hallway. I worked the front desk. A little league baseball team was staying the night and a guest complained to my manager about bats flying around. My manager assumed the baseball team was just being roudy and headed up to tell them to calm down. Turns out it wasn't baseball bats... Just a normal ol' flying bat hanging out in the hallway.
13.
My ex-wife projectile vomited all over a room at the La Quinta in Somerville after way too many SoCo’s at the Rattlesnake. I cannot drive 93 Northbound out of Boston without some degree of shame. Sorry, La Quinta workers. I did the best I could, but there was only so much that could be done. Also, this is one of the many reasons she is now my ex-wife.
14.
A bear. First, you gotta understand that a lot needs to happen for this to occur. Our lowest floor, was still about a meter and a half from the ground, and each outside room had a balcony rail. However, a guest had decided to want to unload his motorcycle from his truck and leave the ramp down, so (I’m assuming) he could ride the bike up when he was done. The guest that was staying in the room had room service, decided to leave the food uncovered and the balcony doors open, and later went to the hotel pool/spa to relax. Upon returning, they had gone to us at reception and said that there was a bear in the room. Puzzled, we quietly approached the room and slowly opened the door. Lo and behold, there was a bear eating room service and making a mess of my afternoon.We called Parks Canada to deal with it. Guest was not charged a cleaning fee.
15.
Not a worker but once my family checked into our hotel and go to our room and open it up only to find a very mortified naked man sitting on the couch watching tv. Made eye contact and just backed out of there. He has the same exact name as me so that’s where the mess up came about.
16.
Not me but my dad. He was the director of housekeeping for a worldwide hotel chain. His housekeepers didn’t know what to do with a girthy 12-inch dildo suction cupped on the writing table. It was “still *very* moist” he said. Then he looked up who stayed in the room to see if maybe they wanted it back but it was 2 tiny, frail little old ladies (canes & all) and he said it was too embarrassing to contact them so he waited a bit to see if they’d call asking for it but they never did. He ended up throwing it out.
17.
I worked at a hotel a few years ago, front desk. I checked out a nice couple in the morning, they were very friendly, said they enjoyed their stay. Then housekeeping got to their room, the poor woman looked shell-shocked. I got to go through the room with a camera and my supervisor to document the state of the room. 2 large, black, double headed dildoes, lots of ziploc baggies with powdery residue, syringes (some used, some still with caps on them, including 2 in the toilet), and more travel sized bottles of baby oil than I could count. We also found what appeared to be feces and blood smeared all over the bedding and walls and a small digital camera. Police were called, descriptions of them taken, and all their information they had used to check in. I quit soon after, so I don't know if they ever found them or pressed charges.
18.
Pizza. And not just like leftovers. An entire pizza. And not a single slice of it in the box. The first red flag we found was the slice of pizza smeared all over on the TV. Then we saw two slices side by side like they had worn them for slippers and dragged their feet across the floor. One slice in the dresser, one in the nightstand, one in the sheets, and one in the bathroom sink.We cleaned the room as normal and put all the pizza in the box. The whole time I'm wondering why someone would do this, was the pizza not good? Was one slice enough and you had to buy the whole thing? I'm doing the final checks in the room and it still smells like pizza. I flick the lamp on and look for the final slice. I finally find it, shadowed in the lamp shade. This individual had smeared the last slice on the inside of the lamp shade. That was the final piece of the puzzle (or pizzazule). This person bought an entire pizza just to hide it in his hotel room.
19.
A dead body... someone [taken their own life] in the hotel room by hanging themselves in the closet. Was in there a few days before we found him....
20.
A friend used to clean hotel rooms as a side job, once he found a s**t on the night stand with a slice of cheese on top. Another time, he went into a room to clean and this woman was lying on the bed naked, he apologized and started to leave. She offered him 50 euros to spit on her while she masturbated. He spat on her.
21.
25 years ago I worked at a snooty part of a snooty ski resort in Park City, Utah. Most of the regular guests were just typical old rich white dudes, but during Sundance season though, the celebrities come out. There is a certain musician, entertaining us for decades now, who has a disgusting hobby. Or did in the early 90s at least. Next time you're cuttin Footloose, or gettin close to the Danger Zone, just know that Kenny Loggins gives his entire family coffee-ground enemas, which leaves a giant mess, and leaves it for the hotel staff to clean up. Twice in one stay.
22.
I was in housekeeping for a while in the winter and a co-worker of mine found a poop in a condom tied to the microwave door. Definitely the most baffling thing I'd heard of anyone finding.
23.
It was a family retreat/kids birthday party. The adults were getting sh**faced while the kids were in the presidential suite raising hell. They had decided to have a fully stocked ice cream bar and allowed the kids to do what they wanted with it. M&Ms crushed into the carpet, chocolate footprints on the walls, whipped cream f*****g everywhere. Fruit punch spilled on the bed. In total we had to charge them about $7k in damages, which they took to court, because they thought "The Cleanup would be included, that's why we did it at a hotel!"They also smashed glass all over our dog hiking trail, which I had to clean up.
24.
I do hotel renovations, so we find anything the housekeepers have forgotten over the years. Most often we find dirty magazines, clothing, children’s toys. Sometimes drugs in super random places lol
26.
A usb drive with two different versions of their obituary that they typed up for themselves
27.
People that have died, feces on the walls and furniture along with vomit, drug paraphernalia, drugs, and once a gun. Feces and vomit is the worst though.
28.
Found bloody parrot feathers all over a room. They claimed it was service animal (it wasn't) and had gotten too stressed and pulled all of its plumage out. The guest tried to blame the hotel for noise. We charged them for the cleanup.Was balancing month end one day when the front was swarmed with police cars. They raided a room with no notice to us at the front desk. Turned out a pimp was cooking meth in one of rooms with two [call grils] and a dog. There was a short standoff before everyone was arrested. Their car was seemingly forgotten about in the parking lot, but it disappeared a week later. We were unable to charge for damages since all of their cards were stolen.
29.
Not a hotel worker but once stayed in a resort in the Dominican where someone had s**t in the safe. Or I guess carried their s**t to the safe? Not sure. Either way, I guess the staff hadn’t checked to see if anything was in there when cleaning after the last people.
30.
A blood soaked Dora theExplorer doll. There were no kids in the room (as far as we know). It was just one dude in his mid 30s. There were 2 cans of monster energy drink beside it and $180 dollars left in tips under the pillow. No idea what was going on.
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