Every single person who has worked or does work in the service industry has some pretty amazing stories to tell. Working with the public is just that way, because people are people and some days, dealing with them is really a lot.
So, if you dare, scroll through the self-confessed weirdest discoveries of these 15 hotel staff members.
15. The motor. Was burned. Out.
OH I GOT one. I was a night auditor though.
This one starts out benign enough, my NA shift starts, and I have a small line. It’s Saturday and we’re near a couple of casinos, not unusual. A very polite man checks in, and rents a top level suite for him and his wife. I get him in and start checking in the next couple. Being distracted, I barely noticed the previous couple come back in, only that the wife was partially obscured by the luggage cart and I remember thinking to myself, “that’s an ugly woman.” The night is quiet and I leave. I come in the next night to hear what unfolded after I left. The couple never came back down to check out, and have not been seen since. When housekeeping entered the room they immediately alert the FDM. Every surface of the room is covered in lube, the bed, the couch, the jacuzzi, even the minifridge is covered in bottles and bottle of lube and baby oil. We know for sure it’s lube, because a dozen bottles are left in the tub. But wait, there’s more! In addition to the lube, there is a rather large horse dildo left behind with thick black scuff marks, and cracked down the center. My FDM, in her infinite wisdom, decides that they must have been junkies and this dildo is where they are hiding their needles. She decides to pick it up to open it “safety” reasons, but when she does, all that falls out is a rather impressive motor that has been burned out.
The icing on this cake comes when they review the security tape. The “wife” is clearly a man in a wig. It’s a big burly dude wearing a cheap wig.
14. I’m going to go ahead and blame it on the booze.
I walked in on a couple sleeping on the bathroom floor of a hotel room in the hotel I work for. The bed was untouched and everything was normal with that one exception.
13. I bet you didn’t feel like you had to leave a tip.
We had a hotel room one time and checked in around 3-4 ish (can’t remember what hotel it was). When we walked in one of the housekeepers was asleep in the chair, apparently had taken a rest and checked out, for who knows how long. We woke her up when we came in the room. She was very apologetic and took her cart and stuff with her right away. We never said anything to the staff or saw her again, the room was all clean and set up so nothing to complain about.
12. This is very curious.
Cleaned a room that contained both a deck of Uno cards and a knock-off deck of Ono cards
11. That IS a hasty retreat.
This couple made a hasty retreat from a five star hotel I was working for. They left an entire brick of cocaine on the bathroom counter.
10. When you gotta go, you gotta go.
I worked as a Concierge for an upscale hotel so, naturally, because there wasn’t a line for my desk, I fielded complaints regularly. One day a woman, very nice and patient (rare) calmly explained to me that her five year old opened the door to their bathroom and there was a housekeeper pooping in there. The housekeeper and the boy screamed so loudly that I had already gotten noise complaints from the adjacent rooms. Needless to say, that family got a free night and an upgrade.
(Edit: GOLD??? You all made my day!)
9. What on earth was he DOING in there?
Hotel worker.
Had an American guy come into our hotel, meant to be staying for 3 days. Went into his room and never left the room in over 2 weeks (he kept phoning down to extend his stay).
The strange thing was, he had the same routine every day. Around 8am, he would order 8 bottles of beer and 20 cigarettes to be sent up to his room. He’d sign the cheque off to his room for the beers but had to pay cash for the cigarettes as they came from the hotel shop, which wasn’t owned by the hotel therefore wasn’t able to charge to the room. The cigarettes came to around £11, and he would always give us a £20 note and told us to keep the change.
Lunchtime rolls around, and again, 8 bottles of beer, and 20 cigarettes.
Come dinner time, again, another 8 beers, but 40 cigarettes this time (assuming to keep a stock of when the shop closed at night time).
This happened every day he was staying with us. No one ever saw him leave the hotel, so assumed he had a stack of £20 notes to pay for his cigarettes. He also instructed housekeeping not to clean his room.
When he eventually left, the maid was greeted with hundreds of empty beer bottles, the bin was half full with cigarette ends and ash, and the room was left remarkably clean, albeit smelling awful.
We tried to research the guy, but could only find he was part of an American broadcasting company (it was a long time ago and can’t remember), so assumed he was over here to lie low.
He checked out, paid off his bill (didn’t even bother to check the bill), into a taxi and never to be seen again.
8. You may never know why exactly people do the things that they do.
I stayed at a hotel that hosted a Magic The Gathering tournament (was visiting Atlantic City, only realized what it was as I played magic a decade ago). In the morning as I was leaving a housekeeper had a room opening and cleaning; he stops me and says “wtf is this? Is it worth money?” I look in and someone has filled the bathtub nearly to the brim with lands/commons.
7. He REALLY didn’t want to leave the machine.
I worked in a casino where I watched a middle aged man literally shake a solid turd down his pant leg, sit back down and continued on his machine. I turned around with backpack vacuum on and went to my lunch break. I didn’t get paid enough to pick up stranger’s shit.
6. Are you sure that wasn’t part of their sales pitch?
This is related but not exactly the question. When my wife and I were looking at wedding venues, one we went to was a hotel. The event manager wanted to take us up and show us the “honeymoon” suite.
She opened the door, and there were two, old men (like 60s-70s), shirtless drinking vodka in the room. She was so extremely embarrassed and apologetic. She was very sweet too, but you could tell she was so mad at whoever screwed that up for her.
We didn’t choose the place (wasn’t why), but I hadn’t thought about that in awhile, and figured someone else may get a kick out of it.
5. That’s a lot of vitamin C.
I worked for a hotel chain in Colorado and one day my coworker and I went to strip a bed and the bed was full of oranges. The dresser oranges. Side table, cans of mandarin oranges. Not exactly shocking or disgusting, but it was weird.
4. He had to know that you noticed.
Not a housekeeper but I was a bartender at a Marriot hotel years ago. Along with regular bartending duties, I also delivered bar orders as part of room service. One night I received a typical order (Wine, beer) from a room that called down to the bar. I brought the drinks to the room and was greeted by an early 50’s man wearing a white robe. He greeted me and asked me to place the drinks on a dresser fairly close to door. As I went to place the drinks down I noticed the bed had between 10-13 dildos laid out neatly along the foot of the bed. The sizes ranged from normal to horse. They were evenly spaced and all facing towards the headboard.
While he was signing I made my way to the door and as soon as he handed me the book I smiled and said “thank you, have a great night! He just smiled and that was it, 0% acknowledgement on his end.
3. I mean why didn’t they take it with them, though?
Worked housekeeping for a few weeks, guess the weirdest shit was a 70 ish couple left their room so I went to clean it. Big bottle of ky and a dildo so big even Ron Jeremy would have been jealous left out on the bed.
2. Yeah that is never okay.
Someone I know worked housekeeping at a casino. He walked in on a guy smearing shit over the walls with his bare hands. He was pissed that he lost money and thought he was justified to do it. Housekeeping called security, he was charged and banned.
1. Yes, I’m sure they “disposed of it” alright.
In the late 90’s I had a roommate who managed a hotel in Manhattan. He came home one night and told me they found a 3 foot Nitrous tank in one of the rooms. They disposed of it personally. These days they would probably call the bomb squad.
Kind of makes you want to bring your own tiny house everywhere you go, doesn’t it?
Have you got a great customer service story? Share it with us in the comments!
