Weirdest Items Stolen From Hotel Rooms
I’ve mentioned that I used to work at the front desk of a resort. I often wondered how some of our guests got along in the real world. They were always calling us with the stupidest questions — I just couldn’t imagine these people surviving on their own. It was also pretty crazy what they thought they could get away with. Theft is very common at hotels, usually guests stealing from the hotel. Of course this is illegal and often infuriating, but sometimes the thievery reaches a level where you can’t even get mad — you just have to laugh and applaud the crook’s boldness.
The craziest thing that ever went missing during my time at the resort was a queen-sized bed. Not only did someone swipe a mattress, box spring, and bed frame, but they took it from the top floor of our hotel. How they got these very large items down several flights, out the door, and off resort property (which required passing through a guard station) is a mystery. Of course we know who took the bed, because they gave us their credit card and ID at check-in — this definitely falls under “incidentals” — so despite their best efforts, this was far from the perfect crime.
Everyone has taken hotel toiletries (though I don’t think it counts as stealing when they’re free and they’re there for your use), and it’s not uncommon for a towel or bathrobe to find its way into a guest’s luggage, either — but there are some things the hotels probably never had the slightest worry of losing, until they were gone.
For instance, an entire marble fireplace went missing from the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire Hotel. How is that even possible?
At the Birmingham Hotel du Vin and Bistro in the UK, a drunk guest was busted attempting to steal a stuffed and mounted boar’s head from the hotel’s billiard room. It would be more impressive if he’d been successful…
The Residence in Bath, a luxury retreat in England, reports that sex toys are their most frequently stolen item. This begs the question — why does a hotel provide sex toys? And it’s uncomfortable enough to think about what’s happened in the hotel bed you sleep in — but sex toys? No mystery there. Yikes.
A former Starwood Hotel Group GM noted that in his 20-year tenure with the hotel chain, the wildest theft he ever encountered was when three people walked into a hotel lobby and wheeled the hotel’s grand piano right out the door and down the street. Wow.
What can I say? I’m impressed.
