We all know that some messed up stuff goes on it hotels. Everything from celebrity meltdowns to porn shoots. But these stories go a little bit beyond “do not disturb.”
This piece is based on a Quora Question and an AskReddit thread. Links on the last page.
1/16. I worked valet at this fancy hotel in Virginia. One Friday evening, this really nice old couple pulls up and gets us to unload their bags and park the car, all the stuff you do at a fancy hotel. Later that night, they have a nice dinner and drinks out on the town and return to the hotel.
The next morning, someone sees a note on their door that says, “Do not enter, call the police”. It turns out that the wife had been diagnosed with a terminal, incurable disease and they decided to take cyanide and both go out together after a nice evening, instead of letting the disease win.
The weekend after this happened, the room was reopened and no one even knew that it happened.
rwebster4293
2/16. We had a guest we ended up calling “Pie Guy. He would come into the hotel without a reservation, pay for a rum in cash, and put down a $100 cash deposit. The next day, we would find his bathroom and bathtub full of the crusty remains of several expensive pies.
He never came to the desk for his deposit, as he knew he wouldn’t be getting it back. Eventually, we added his name to our “do not rent” list but he kept coming back and using different names.
One time we found a torn up list in his room with the words “pie” and “pants” scribbled over and over again.
ladywug
3/16. One night, a guy came in with a luggage cart filled with boxes and a VCR. As you might expect, within 30 minutes, we received multiple noise complaints of vulgar sounds coming from his room. But the mystery runs a little deeper than you might expect. (continued)
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We made multiple unanswered warning calls to the room, so I called the Police. They got there pretty quickly, and we went up to the room.
Noise is not discernible. Knocks go unanswered. Open the room up, andA VCR is plugged in, pornography is on the TV (now muted) with piles of other VHS porn tapes piled all over the room. Multiple sex toys and lubricants spread around everywhere. But there was no sign of the guy.
So we leave the room as is until morning. We check on the room in the morning, and theres no sign he’s been back. In fact, he never returned. Like some kind of porn VHS Phantom of the Opera. His stash went in the dumpster.
usulsspct
4/16. While working as the overnight manager at the Ritz-Carlton Chicago, the bartender called me at 1:30am and said he was having trouble closing down the bar because a bunch of people were playing the piano, singing and wouldnt leave.
I was so busy with reports, etc that I marched right over intent on quickly breaking up the party. I entered the bar to find none other than Fleetwood Mac singing Beatle covers!
There was Mick Fleetwood playing percussion on a cigar box, and Christine McVie at the piano. I stood in awe. A backup singer grabbed me by the arm, pulled me over to McVie and I sat next to her singing Hey Jude and other songs. Surreal.
Bruce Claver
5/16. Once, a stoned guy walked into the lobby at midnight, picked up a decorative rock, walked around the perimeter of the lobby, and then put the rock back. Then, without a word, he returned from whence he came.
[deleted]
6/16. I initially considered going anonymous for this answer, but what the hell. It’s true and it happened so why hide, right?
We once had a consultant from a very large company come show up incredibly drunk at the hotel. He couldn’t find his own room and kept trying his key on the room exactly one floor below his.
That room was occupied by a woman who promptly called security. They figured out who he was, took him to his room and thought that would be the end of it. An hour later, the same woman called – her ceiling was leaking water. (continued…)
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Guessing what might be the problem, security rushed to this guy’s room. No answer. Could hear water running. They were stepping on wet carpet outside the room.
It’s 2am now, and they forcibly enter the room. Rush to the bathroom. Our guy is stark naked, passed out, sprawled on to the floor of the large rain shower, with his butt covering and completely blocking the drain. Security, turn the water off, cover him but take a photo.
Total damage was about $13,000 (carpets, cleaning, etc.) The guy tried to deny it in the morning. Our hotel manager was having none of it. She showed him the photo and he agreed to pay the full amount back to the hotel if we didn’t tell his employer. We didn’t.
Vikram Pradhan
7/16. One night, I had a guy who was racist against white people (he was a old white man himself). He would only be helped and served by people of color, telling us “you can’t trust white people.”
greenmouse19
8/16. I used to work at the front desk. One day, a guy asked if he could book another room to store his eleven life-size sex dolls.
NuketheNukes
9/16. Former hotel maid here. Walked in (after being told to “come in”) on a older woman inserting a foreign object into a much younger man on a bed where they had replaced the hotel sheets with their own Twilight themed spread.
Poodie234
10/16. I had a weird guest who was part of a land survey crew that would come in every week. One time she called the front desk and said, “There are bubbles in my toilet. Why are there bubbles in my toilet?”
I told her they might have flushed the water pipes (BSing). She then says, “Hold on, I’m going to bring some down.” I said, “Ma’am, that’s really not necessary,” but she was already off the line. (continued…)
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About 5 minutes later she comes down the elevator with a wineglass full of clear water.
“Well, it was bubbly a minute ago!” she insisted. I had to walk in the back and beat my head against the wall for a bit.
We also found a crack pipe made from a hotel pen, and what look like rocks in cigarette cellophane. In the presidential suite.
dsetech
11/16. At Caesars Palace in early 1990, I checked in these two guys. One was a “talent manager” who kept insisting that the guy standing next to him was going to be the funniest and most famous comedian in the world one day. Well, that was a mighty unlikely brag.
I looked over at the guy and simply said, congratulations and best of luck to you thinking these guys are the biggest joke ever. But I decide to remember the up-and-coming comedians name. Jim Carey, if you were wondering.
Bruce Claver
12/16. This one lady came into the lobby around 11pm, asked for the workout room. So I opened it back up for her figuring she was one of those 24hr workout people. I went back in around 3am to close it up again, and realized she had set up a bed for herself on the treadmill. She was having a fight with her husband.
greenmouse19
13/16. I had a drummer for a certain famous musical group stay at a hotel I worked at at the time. He smoked pot in the room, and left the remainder of the drugs lying around.
Housekeeping cleaned the room, reported the drugs, management called local police. Local police said he is a VIP and we need to get approval from on high to arrest them, since big lawyers and PR will be involved. Higher authorities replied that approval would need to wait until the next day when the district attorney could decide.
The drummer came back, saw that his pot was missing, and, like an idiot, demanded we contact the police to let them know that housekeeping had stolen his drugs. (continued…)
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So we called the police, half-expecting to see an arrest for possession. When the officer arrived, I took him in the back office, away from the guests, and explained the situation and backstory. We had a good laugh at the drummer’s stupidity.
The officer comes out straight faced, takes the drummer’s (dead serious) statement, listens to him explain how he had left his illegal drugs in the room, and now they are gone, then lets him know the police will follow up with him in the morning.
They never did. That guy is lucky hes a good drummer.
Edward Conway
14/16. While stories of men cheating on their wives are common, we actually had the wife show up one afternoon at the front desk looking for him. In a bad mood, naturally, fuming, ready to rip someone’s head off. She said she knew he was there, she just needed the room number. We knew this guy – he was a regular, for what it’s worth.
Luckily for this guy, his mistress paid for the room (in cash), so we used an alias on the room. We would allow that as long as we had seen ID and knew who the person really was.
So we were able to tell the wife that there was no one registered by that name. She argued and left. Then security got a call. A distressed woman was knocking on every door demanding to see if her husband is in one of them. Quite the scene. Many guests were appalled while other took pleasure in the spectacle.
The front desk called the guy in his room, and the next thing we know, we had to escort him from the back of the hotel to his car in the garage underground. Police were called and took the wife in to custody. Needless to say, we never saw any of them again.
Vikram Pradhan
15/16. Had a guy in a very upscale hotel sit in the lobby and smoke several Cuban cigars and drink about a litre of Patron. I guess he had to use the bathroom, so he made his way to the front desk to ask where the toilet is.
After asking and making his way down the stairs, the bellman said he smelled something strange. (continued…)
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Then he saw a turd on the floor in front of the desk. The gentleman was still walking downstairs and was leaving a trail of poop behind him. He was wearing long pants and they were just tumbling out of the leg hole every few feet or so. He made it to the bathroom and proceeded to smear the mess all over the walls of the stall. He left the mess and his pants for housekeeping to clean up.
Once presented with the bill for cleaning the next day, he threatened to write a bad review – since he was apparently a hotel critic and all.
He was blacklisted and never got his pants back.
starkeye311
16/16. I started working right out of high school at a very nice hotel in my city as a dishwasher in the hotel restaurant. Sometimes I would run room service orders to guests if the waiters were super busy.
My second week working there I was taking up a meal to the third floor of the hotel just before the kitchen closed. I get off the elevator and I immediately heard faint moaning from the other end of the long hallway, but I figured it was just someone having sex.
I delivered the food, and the guest told me she had heard loud screaming minutes before I came to the door. She seemed worried.
As I was about get back on the elevator the moans continued. I looked toward the end of the hallway to see something on the ground next to the ice machine at the very end of the hallway. I walked over to see what it was, and I found a man dressed as a woman, wearing a blonde wig, and a short red dress, laying in a pool of vomit, moaning.
The strange part about it was that the dress was pulled up and this person had one of those Nature Valley granola bars shoved halfway up his butt. Eighteen year old me couldn’t comprehend the situation, so I immediately went downstairs and told security.
About 20 minutes later, paramedics arrived and took care of the guy.
Jdub90