Hotels are notorious for bringing out the worst in some people. With so many guests checking in and out of the place, there's no telling what could be happening behind all these closed doors. Many people slip into the vacation mood and want to take home a tangible memory of their stay by snatching up the little toiletries, toothbrushes, and slippers. But when it comes to the hotel staff, they remember guests not by what they’ve taken but rather from the nastiest things they’ve left behind.
Anyone who’s ever worked in the hospitality and service industries has been witness to at least one of such stomach-churning events. So three users, deveronii, MichaelJCaboose_, and LucasSkudy, reached out to the hotel workers of Reddit and invited them to reveal the strangest and craziest things they found left behind in someone’s room. And boy, they didn’t hold anything back.
We at Bored Panda have scoured the thread and gathered some of the most surprising responses to share with you all. So next time you check into a spotless room, spare a thought for the staff who find the unbelievable when they clean up. Continue scrolling and upvote your favorite responses. And if you have any similar experiences, be sure to share them with us in the comments below!
Psst! If you're interested in even more hotel goodness, check out our previous piece about the times people spotted simple yet genius solutions during their stay.
#21

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.
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98points
#22
We got a call from an anonymous person asking for us to do a wellness check on a guest. I get a call from security a few minutes later, and the guy on the other end of the radio sounded pretty shook up.
"M-MOD... We need you up here ASAP"
I get upstairs and the two security guards look pale. They refused to go into the room, only saying that they knew i would know how to handle the situation (I'm a combat vet and ex police officer)
I get into the room and everything is tidy. Bags packed, beds made, etc. At that moment I see the balcony door open and what appears to be someone laying out on the balcony wearing all their clothes. Drunk? Passed out? No....
As i got to the balcony, i could now see the persons lap, and a revolver in their hand on said lap. I stop for a moment, and realize he's not moving, so i step out onto the balcony, and the gravity of the situation becomes clear...
Guy blew his head off. One shot to the roof of his mouth. I'll spare you the details, but i didn't have to check much to call it.
At least this was the middle of the night, one shot, no other guests were awakened, and i was able to get PD, Coroners and detectives in, and all of them including the body out through the back with no one else knowing anything happened.
I went back downstairs and finished my pizza.
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98points
#23

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.
92points
#24
A dead body. Guy came in for the weekend, hired a [call girl], and OD'd.
The worst part was probably when his sister came to get all his belongings. When we pulled his car out of valet, we noticed 2 baby seats in the back :(.
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92points
#25

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.
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90points
#26

A usb drive with two different versions of their obituary that they typed up for themselves
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84points
#27

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.
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82points
#28

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.
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81points
#29

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....
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76points
#30
There was an older woman who checked in my second week of being there, she definitely should not have been independent. She lived in town and booked a room for a week. She said that she was getting her house renovated because it was infested with “fibreglass”. She was probably in her 70’s or was just not upkeeping herself for a person in her 60’s. She would walk around with one of those surgical masks and wearing yellow rubber gloves. As the week went on she started to wear bandages on her arms (we thinks she was scratching herself, i bet if we asked it would have been because of the fibreglass).
She shouldnt have been able to drive but she kept going to and from her house to get more things, basically was moving in. Our hotel was on a main road and she would just back up into it without looking, it was a miracle she never got into an accident.
But other than that she would spend most of her time in the room, and occasionally would walk to the office (where the manager would sit, this would be me or one of my other coworkers) and just spout crazy stories about fibreglass and how it was everywhere and all over her room. Once the week was up she extended her stay another 5 days because (her house wasnt ready yet).
She repeatedly declined maid service so we could never really get a glance of the condition of the room, yet she would keep complaining that her airconditioning had “fibreglass all over it”, and one of the days she came to the door complaining that the room was infested with spiders and she showed a tissue that she said had “spiders in it” but there was nothing. Like real sad stuff.
Unfortunately since we didnt really have any real way of helping her, my boss advised me to tell her that we are booked solid for the rest of the summer/etc so she couldnt extend her stay any longer, so we waited out those last few days dealing with her complaining and occasionally catching glances at the room as the maids brought her towels and such.
From what we saw there were pillows everywhere, a big bag of like perfumes, pills, etc sprawled out on the dressor (like sooo many random things), etc. She was seen a few times carrying large garbage bags into the room we werent sure what was in them. Just imagine a room that a mentally ill person had been staying in.
She also had a few weird interactions with guests that made them complain, so we really could not wait until she was gone.
But this is the freakiest part where we get to the answer to what we found after a guest’s stay:
IT WAS SPOTLESS. On her last night (we think she climbed out the window (first floor) and put stuff in her car and left (stealing the key too but thats common enough we just replace them). We went back and looked on camera and she was not on camera at all, the night manager did not see her leave (if you leave the regular way you have to be seen by the manager, the office is in the front and its a small hotel). Only way she coulda done it was through the window.
Every worker at the hotel was so curious to see what the room was like after she was gone, it was insane, clean, nothing broken except the airconditioner air filter (she said it had fibreglass all in it), but other than that not much else. We still had a third party clean the room but it was freakin weird man.
My boss said she drove by the address and it was a beautiful house must be a couple mil minimum, and there was like a metal trailer in the driveway (we think she started living in that after the hotel). Sad, and just so, so bizzare. I really hope she got some help or something. There really wasnt much we/i specifically could do, so we had to just move on.
Tldr: Mentally ill woman stayed because her house had “fibreglass all over”, she was increasingly weird and started to freak out other guests as time went on and then left like a ninja, room pretty much good as new. Real sad situation tho :/
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67points


