Recently over on the Ask Reddit subreddit, u/akumamatata8080 posed the question, "People who work at super fancy hotels, what kind of stuff happens that management doesn’t want people to know about?" And, unsurprisingly, the comments were...a lot. It seems that just because a hotel is expensive and highly rated doesn't necessarily mean it's any cleaner or less crime-ridden. And it definitely doesn't mean it's immune from seedy exploits.
So here are 22 things that people who work or have worked in luxury hotels say management has hidden from its guests:
1. "It's pretty common to have a dead guest. There's a standard procedure for it, and we take care of it quietly."
2. "The amount of sex toys left behind will blow your mind."
3. "I work as a housekeeper at a 4-star hotel, and probably about 25% of people either bleed or leave shit stains on the beds. It's truly atrocious how disgusting people are, especially when they know someone else is cleaning it up — even the wealthier guests. The best tippers are the cleanest people. If someone fully shit on the bed and used towels to wipe, left bodily fluids on the shower door, drank heavily, puked on the carpet in multiple places, and clogged the toilet, that person's probably not tipping at all. But the person who barely used the entire bed, didn't use the shower at all and was super clean and polite, now that's a good tipper."
4. "A ton of porn is shot. They'll reserve the waterfront penthouse, some guys unload a bunch of camera gear, a couple of done-up girls come and leave, and then everyone checks out. No one stays the night even though the room is paid for."
5. "A family member used to work at a super fancy hotel in Nashville. For about a year, they had a phantom shitter, as in random dumps left in random places. It was always left in corners where security cameras couldn't reach. They figured it was an employee and had some guesses, but they never found out who it was until someone left, and it stopped."
6. "We had an entire wing of the hotel infested with bedbugs. They'd just move through the walls from one room to the next. We waged a war of attrition that took years and cost a lot of money, but we never stopped renting the rooms."
7. "When I worked at a nice hotel, affairs were brought up in training. Never mention a guest being a regular and doubly don’t mention anything about their partner or the fact that they're currently with a different partner. That became a rule after some valet basically kickstarted a very nasty divorce with a wealthy guest."
8. "We had valet service at our hotel, and due to huge amounts of theft and break-ins in our lots, we had to go through guests' cars, take everything of value out, hide it in our conference room, and then put it all back before we brought their car around. We had to keep it under wraps. It was ridiculous."
9. "There were several times when guests would come to the front desk claiming the maids had stolen something from their room. They would be irate, demanding we call the police. And every...single...time they found the item either in their luggage or car."
10. "I used to work as a freelance bartender, and nice-looking hotels were always the worst-run situation I would end up in. One had beer lines that had never been cleaned, like literally never. The worst I saw though was what they did with the wine they put out on tables at weddings. They married them up, recapped them, and put them back in the cellar. It wasn't even the same brands of wine getting poured into bottles. And guests often drank straight from these bottles. No staff had an issue with this."
11. "I once found a kidnapped baby in my hotel. Those same criminals were also committing credit card fraud while shooting up heroin in our rooms."
12. "I had a guest throw a chair through our front window and the management made up some weird story about 'high winds.'"
13. "A friend of mine recently confirmed the cliché that the cleaning staff uses ONE cloth for cleaning the entire hallway of rooms. That means they start at the first room with the furniture and stuff and end with the bathroom. Then they proceed to clean the second room and start with the furniture again. On good days, they use two separate rags — one for the room and one for the bathroom — but they still start with the sink and end with the toilet, only to start with the sink in the next room again. It's so disgusting to think about."
14. "A runaway criminal hid in our rooftop for days, using the pool and the facilities. He was nice, looked clean (of course, he was taking half-an-hour showers in the hotel's pool changing room), and he usually only requested water and ketchup. But he studied us, our routines, and our starting and finishing hours. Then one day we realized who he was and called the police. Around 40 guys from special forces arrived and invaded the hotel. There was a chase for over five hours. Later we found out the guy was camping in one of our storage rooms."
15. "I worked at a lodge that recycled table salad dressing container servings. When a customer ordered a 'big salad,' they got a metal container of about five ounces of their dressing, and most people didn't use it all. So when the tables were bussed, the dressing container was brought back, and the contents were poured back into the big gallon container of dressing. I was mortified when an employee told me to do this. To be certain, the owner explained to me, 'That's how we do it here.' Can you imagine what happens to a container of blue cheese after it's been on a table for 40 minutes?"
16. "I worked valet at a really nice hotel. I had to give some very drunk people their car back. I’m talking having-trouble-standing drunk. Management said it was their property and that we had to give them their vehicle."
17. "I worked at a very high-end hotel for a few years. Pretty much everything you can think of happens. Copious amounts of drugs (mostly cocaine), countless used condoms strewn across entire rooms, extramarital affairs, staff hooking up in vacant rooms, guests stealing, staff stealing, etc. But the wildest aspect to me was always that rich people would get away with literally anything. Plus, if they were rich AND famous, they’d usually pay a much lower room rate than ordinary guests would pay for the same room. And they'd be showered with extravagant gifts just because our managers wanted to 'be nice' and give these VIPs an incentive to return to us. It really shows you that the rich live in their own world."
18. "I used to work as an evening clerk at a resort hotel, and we would always strategize which rooms people would stay in. Families with small children would all be put on the same side and preferably on the same floors. Single guys would never be put near them. And, if you were super nice to us while checking in, we would put you in a better room. We knew exactly which rooms had better views and newer beds and which were slightly bigger due to layout. We also knew which rooms had the worst views, were the noisiest, and had the oldest beds. And yes, if you were rude to the staff at check-in, there was a good chance you would end up in one of the crappy rooms."
19. "For some reason, people wash their underwear in the electric kettles. Don’t use them for tea or coffee."
20. "I just recently quit my job at a very old and extremely popular 4-star hotel. For an entire summer, we weren’t given sponges and had to scrub toilets, tubs, etc. with nothing but our gloved hands and cleaner. Some housekeepers bought their own sponges, but there was no way I was going to spend money when the hotel makes millions every year. When we finally got sponges, we would use the same one for every sink, toilet, and tub/shower."
"There was also mold growing behind the wallpaper in some of the bathrooms, especially the poolside rooms. And we prioritized speed over cleanliness every time. If pillowcases didn’t *look* used, we were taught to not replace them. It just has to look clean; it doesn’t have to actually be clean."
21. "The amount of people who shit in the shower far exceeds however many people you think shit in the shower."
22. And finally, "I've worked over 30 years in the luxury hotel business. What kind of stuff happens? Everything. You name it, and it will happen. In fact, that becomes part of the training. 'If it can happen, it will happen.' Think somebody won't steal the couches out of the lobby? Seen it. Think somebody won't push a massive vending machine over a balcony? Seen it. Think somebody won't meticulously cut every sheet and drapery into 1-inch by 1-inch squares? Seen it. These things are rare, but they can and do happen."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.