20 Hotel Employees Share Shocking Stories That Will Change How You See Every Stay Forever

My mom worked at a hotel, she walked into a weird but cool/sad situation. The hotel had a local alley cat, orange tabby we called Tom. Tom would let himself in to anyroom and stay the night. But one time no one would let him in. So he found a truck with an open window and climbed in. Next day, guy checks out and drives 100 miles to another town, and discovers the cat behind the seat just laying there purring. The guy drove 100 miles back to return the cat. Cat lived like a king for another 2 years until someone finally adopted it and gave it a permanent home. Tom wasn’t into that, and tried to make it back to the hotel 3 miles away. Half way back he stopped at the city pool, kids got him wet and he freaked out, ran into traffic and got hit. People who knew the cat pitched in cash, cat got the surgery, survived….and then 2 months later he f****n crossed town again and made it to the hotel, checked into a room, curled up on a bed, and passed away. Broke my mom’s heart, she quit a week after that cause she was the last one to pet the cat and couldn’t bare changing the room he passed in. She said Everytime she went in there, she swore when her back was turned to the bed, she could hear him purring like he always did as he followed her from room to room.

GamingWithBilly , ROMAN ODINTSOV Report

Not me, but my friend from Ukraine worked at a crappy casino hotel in Wendover, Nevada, because they would sponsor his work visa. He wasn’t a housekeeper but would have to do maintenance in rooms. He said one day he went to a room where the people had already checked out and there was a chicken in the room. Like a live chicken. Just chilling there. Maybe the story is funnier when he tells it with his accent. *Why eez cheeken in room?*

pounds , Moepoofles Moepoofles Report

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.

anon , Arina Krasnikova Report

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.

rura_penthe924 , Kha Ruxury Report

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.

heideggerian , Keira Burton Report

In the 80s my aunt was a maid in the at a hotel, but was on holiday when this happened. She was Polish, didn’t really speak English, and she just made enough money to travel with her husband and friends to Vegas for a vacation. As the night went on in the casino, she decided to go to bed. As she took the elevator, it stopped one floor up and two huge black dudes in suits walked in (I mean, like ceiling high) and a short black man came in with them, smiling at my aunt. They pushed the Penthouse Button. As my aunt was, well, scared of black people back then, especially the two huge dudes and a grinning stranger, she started panicking, talking to them in Polish not to hurt her and giving them her watch. The men were obviously really confused, but the short one couldn’t stop laughing. As the elevator stopped on her floor, she ran to her room, glancing back at the elevator. She noticed the men were checking which room she was in. Of course, she panicked, didn’t sleep all night, kept talking to her husband how she almost got kidnapped or whatever, but nothing happened all night. In the morning, someone knocked on the door. As they opened, a hotel employee said they got a gift from someone. It was a huge bouquet of roses. In each rose was a 100$ bill. And a card saying: “To the crazy lady from the elevator. Thanks for the watch- Eddie Murphy” True story.

Napiur , Erik Mclean Report

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.

CoolBeansMan9 , User Report

My grandfather used to work at a posh resort where many celebrities checked in. He told us that Bill Cosby always trashed the room and left behind a huge mess with no tip for the housekeepers. This was back when Cosby was viewed as “America’s Dad.” Now it doesn’t seem strange at all.

anon , Phillip Goldsberry Report

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.

User , Mikhail Nilov Report

I will NEVER forget this one room I had to clean as a housekeeper…it was one of my first jobs, I was 16. We were given 30min max per room and I walked in and immediately radioed my manager letting her know I would need longer. The stench smacked me in the face immediately…B.O. and meat. The tan carpet and all of the sheets were stained with deep red bbq sauce and there were over 40 rib bones EVERYWHERE. There was a tripod left on its side in the corner of the room and handcuffs on the floor lamp, which they obviously lost the key to, because they tried to break the base of the lamp to get them off. I almost cried trying to get the [darn] bbq sauce out of the carpet…the manager sent two women up to help me when she saw what I was dealing with. I only assume a cheaply made food was filmed the night before.

User , SHVETS production Report

A couple came to this luxury dude ranch I worked at and spent over $5000 to stay there only to not come out of their room the entire time. Went in to clean the room when they left and saw incredibly expensive unopened alcohol and boxes of [intimacy] toys around the room. On the bed they left a note that said enjoy…..um what? We threw out the toys (who the [darn] would use a used [intimacy] toy left by an unknown person?) and got hammered that night.

yaloha95 , Joyce Romero Report

I can answer this one! Worked at a huge water park resort. I was doing a late shift at a time of year when the resort was almost empty. So, tired of knocking on all the doors, I just barged into the rooms. (To clarify, I always knocked. But I was getting tired after 20 or so rooms without a guest.) Come this room in the 4th floor. I walk in and there’s an old, heavy guy feasting on a bucket of fried chicken. Lights off, in front of the TV. He stared at me for a couple of seconds and I apologized before he could say anything. Left the room immediately. I later found out that room was supposed to be vacant. I have no idea where he came from, why he was there or how he got there.

User , Ricardo IV Tamayo Report

I used to work in reservations in a big chain hotel in London. Housekeeping once told us there was one regular guest who used to ALWAYS leave a single whole in-tact raw egg in the bed when they checked out. Nobody ever figured out why or where on earth they got that single raw egg in the middle of central London (grocery stores aren’t frequent in the area and they certainly don’t sell eggs one by one). — Edit: My first silver! Thank you very much! Edit 2: I didn’t say it’s a mission impossible to get eggs in London. There’s a bit of overreaction here. But the type of guest/hotel/area combination, the whole situation was particularly peculiar.

Naima22 , Klaus Nielsen Report

Someone I know worked housekeeping at a casino. He walked in on a guy smearing s**t over the walls with his bare hands. He was [angry] that he lost money and thought he was justified to do it. Housekeeping called security, he was charged and banned.

anon , Ron Lach Report

I don’t know about them, but I was working on a job in a shady part of Yakima WA called Yakima. We were working 12-14 hour days. I just left my gun in the drawer and I’m not a cluttery person so I just empty my pockets into the nightstand drawer every night. One day I left my gun, a roll of duct tape, some big zip ties and a knife in the drawer. When I came back, room was clean and the drawer was organized nicer. After that, the housekeeping lady would scuttle away upon my visage.

AudZ0629 , Liliana Drew Report

Wasnt a housekeeper, but worked as front desk for night shift (2300 – 0700) in a small (20 rooms) hotel + restaurant. We have a regular customer who used to arrive at 3-4 am, always ringed before arriving cause he demanded help from the staff for his luggage and asked everyone to call him “Doctor”. One night he asked me to take out the TV out of his room, I offered him a TV-less room but he insisted on just removing the TV. On another time, he arrived alone (as usual) and stayed for 3 or 4 nights. Last night he filed a complaint about someone from the staff sneaking into his room, drugging him, and sleeping with his wife (dude implied there had been sexual [intimacy]). The weird part is that he arrived alone, and that night it was the only customer in the whole place. It was only him, the guy working as handyman who was in the restaurant at the time and me. No one saw him go in or out with anyone, when he left his room (alone) at 4am I entered to see if everything was in order, he had put the sheets in the tub and were soaking wet, he ripped the pillow cases and tried to flush them in the toilet, there was a lot of red yarn in the floor. No signs of no one else. It bugged me to this day cause I dont know if he was psychotic or what. Other time one of the housekeeping ladies called me cause there was a bed that looked as if Jack the ripper had killed someone and were covered in blood, really strange.

User , Mikhail Nilov Report

One time I walked into a room and it was completely covered in red stains. Absolutely everywhere you could see. On the beds, the carpets, the floors, the walls, all over the bathroom. And even a bit on the ceiling. No idea how they managed to do that. At first I thought it may be blood, but then I noticed it reeked of alcohol. They spilled red wine absolutely everywhere. The room had to be shut down and they had to bring up the shampoo machines. I think they may have had to repaint too. Bonus story: That very same day I walked into a room that was very heavily smoked in. The smell was so extremely bad, that I couldn’t breathe at all. My manager said that it takes at least five people chainsmoking for at least twelve hours straight to make a room smell as bad as that one did. That also required a machine. And they had to replace the mattresses and curtains. Smoking was not allowed anywhere in the hotel.

FrozenNord , cottonbro studio Report

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.

LiveLongAndPasta , Pixabay Report

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 “[why?] is this? Is it worth money?” I look in and someone has filled the bathtub nearly to the brim with lands/commons.

lemur1985 , Michael Coghlan Report