We asked the BuzzFeed Community for their craziest tanning salon stories. Here are their shocking responses.
1. The number one with a mullet.
"I worked at a tanning salon in high school. A weird middle-aged man with a mullet came in for a one-time tan. He thought it’d be a fun time to jack off in the bed and come all over the inside of the tanning bed. I refused to clean it."
2. The stick-ons.
"This happened to my sister, not me, but one time she went tanning the day of homecoming and came home a little pink from being burnt. She didn’t really think much of it and preceded to get ready for the dance, which included putting on stick-on bra cups. Fast forward to the end of the night, she went to take off the stick-ons and the skin on her tits proceeded to rip off with them. She lost at least layer on each and could only wear loose tops and no bra for a couple of weeks. She says to this day that it was the most painful experience of her life, including child birth."
3. The first job.
"I worked at a tanning salon for two years, and by deep-cleaning the beds, we found some nasty stuff. A co-worker and I found a USED panty liner, a used condom, a pair of soiled panties, and SEVERAL empty liquor bottles. This was my first job and I was 16 to 18 years old cleaning this stuff up! PEOPLE ARE NASTY."
4. The eyewear.
"I once went to a tanning bed with some friends. The lady at the desk asked, ‘Do you have any eyewear?’ And I said yes. She then said, ‘Is it on you? I need to see it.’ Thinking this was weird, I said yes and went around the counter to show her. This entire time I thought she was saying, ‘Do you have any underwear? Is it on you?’ I proceeded to partially pull my pants down so she could see my ‘underwear’… She looked at me in disbelief while my friends laughed at me. The woman yelled, ‘No I meant EYEWEAR!’ I didn’t have any eyewear. To this day my friends won’t let me live that one down."
6. The wastebasket.
"I worked at a tanning salon for a pretty long time and you realize people do some weird stuff (like wear sunscreen in the bed, what’s the point). The weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me was going into the spray-tan booth to clean it after someone got a spray and realizing they peed in the waste basket. It was a middle-aged woman who made no attempt to clean it up, just left. The bathroom was across the hall from the room. Such a joy cleaning that mess."
7. The broken fan.
"I went in a stand-up tanning booth once and after a few minutes realized how unbearably hot it had gotten in there. I looked up and noticed the fan wasn’t moving…because a dead mouse was lodged in it, its legs and tail dangling down toward me."
8. The selfie.
"I’ve worked at a tanning salon for eight or so years, and a ton of crazy stuff has happened. We’ve had a gorgeous guy who peed in the trashcan (despite the bathroom 10 feet away). Then a blind, elderly woman accused me of stealing her weed she thought she left in the room but that she had actually left in the car. Also had to help a woman delete a naked picture she took in the room off of her Snapchat story because she did not know how."
9. The super gulp.
"I have worked at a few tanning salons over the years throughout high school and college, and I’ve seen almost everything from self-pleasure to a guy who left streak marks across the bed. But the one that takes the cake was the person who brought their 60-ounce Super Gulp into our standup bed and dumped it all over the floor, fried the circuits, and started a electrical fire in the wall and left without saying a single word."
10. The six-pack.
"I worked at a salon for a while. I’ve had people pee and poop in the beds or trash cans. I’ve had people come out of the rooms completely naked. My favorite is the man who would drink a bottle of vodka in his truck, come in and tan, and then leave the bottle or two in the trash. There was another lady who would bring in a six-pack of beer in her purse (always). I also had a lady call the cops saying I was watching her naked because we had cameras up front for break-ins and such, not even near her bed. I had some of the craziest nights working at that salon."
11. The zebra stripe.
"It was the day before my junior year of high school years ago, and I decided to get a spray tan because I had bad tan lines from shorts from lifeguarding all summer. I went the day before school started and followed all the instructions for the spray-tan booth. I looked great walking out of the tanning salon. But then my mom called me and we got into a silly argument and I started to cry. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized my sobbing caused my tears to streak the spray tan down my face and neck. Needless to say, no amount of bronzer or self-tanner fixed it and the first day of my junior year in high school I walked in looking like a zebra. On the bright side, my legs turned out awesome. Now I stick to tanning beds."
12. The long nap.
"My favorite/weirdest memory was when a lady came in for a tan and it ended with her being escorted out in handcuffs. Our computers up front tell us how much time each bed has left and how long it’s been since the bed shut off. This woman stayed in there for an hour. We tried banging on the doors and calling her name and she wouldn’t respond. We thought she was dead so we called 911. They got the door open and woke her up. Apparently she had taken a large dose of sleeping pills before she got in the bed. Right as the police officer was leaving her room, a bag full of pills fell out of her purse. He arrested her in front of the entire salon."
13. The right day to quit.
"I worked in a tanning salon that the rest of the employees and I swore was haunted. Bulbs would shatter on their own. The radios would turn on and off by themselves and the volume would even change. The employees in the building next door would tell us to stop knocking on the walls but no one was knocking. One day I was opening the salon and was all alone. I was inside the spray-tan booth getting it set up. All of a sudden I heard laughter and very loud footsteps as if someone was sprinting down the hallway. It scared the crap out of me, but when I emerged from the room and couldn’t find a single soul in the salon, I double-checked the front door and it was still locked. No one could have gotten in. I almost quit my job that day. I don’t know why any ghost would want to haunt a tanning salon, but I do know that we were not alone in that building."
14. The reptile.
"I worked at a tanning salon and had to tell a customer she couldn’t put her pet lizard in the bed…"
15. The dirty towel.
"I worked at a tanning salon one semester in college. The second week that I was there, a man in his mid-thirties pooped in his towel and handed it to me instead of throwing it in the towel bin or throwing it away before he left. However, while I stood there with his poop towel in my hand, he sat down in the waiting room and watched my reaction and what I did with it! I cried and washed my hands for 30 minutes. We bleached the bed he was in and didn’t let anyone go in it for the rest of the day."
16. The storm warning.
"I went tanning late on a particularly stormy night. I got in the bed and after a couple minutes someone banged on my door and screamed, “Tornado — get out!” I got out of the bed and heard the windows vibrating so I ran my mostly naked ass down the hall to an interior room with everyone else in the salon. I was the only naked one."
17. The double dip.
"A guy came in who I had never seen before. I set him up with a membership and he got into his bed. He was in the room for about 45 minutes, which is odd, but I didn’t think much of it because some people actually get ready after a tan. I didn’t see him leave, but when I went in to clean his bed, it was covered in shit and semen. I don’t know what the hell he was doing in there. I managed to clean it up without vomiting and immediately canceled his membership.
We would have teenagers pee in the spray booths on a regular basis. (This happens more often than you would think — lay a towel on the ground inside of spray booths before you get in). We found poop and pee in the trash several times. One time a girl double-dipped and left her very dirty tampon in the bed and her very dirty underwear hanging from the nozzle in the spray."
18. And the reason so many people pee at the tanning salon?
"I was getting a spray tan and once I got naked to get into the machine I realized I had to pee but couldn’t put my clothes back on because the mist machine was on a timer and I would miss it. I went in the bed and tried to hold it in but I ended up peeing in the machine. I I finished the tan and came out of the machine so I could clean it up. I had lines running down my legs from the pee."
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.