Stealing hotel towels

[Anonymous]

I used to work in a hotel for many years and was shocked by what people took. Art work, comforters, pillows, linens, art work, even an ironing board. Many hotels have offered programs for you to buy the items in the room, but it sounds like you are saying they don't do that.

Depending on where they are staying and what they are taking, some hotels will charge. There is a large difference between making a mistake and taking something vs. blatantly stealing stuff. When it comes to towels, for a hotel to charge a guest, it isn't all that easy. The guest could easily reply, "oh, I took that to the pool" or make up another excuse.

I find it shocking what people people take from a hotel. Typically, the response is, "Well, I am paying for the stuff, so I can take it." It ultimately is what is driving up the cost of your average night rate. Even the shampoo and conditioner items. A hotel budgets only so much for each guest. Taking multiple items, causes higher costs...eventually.

[Anonymous]

Why the hell would you want hotel towels anyway? Yuck. Thousands of people using them and who knows how often the really get washed.

[Anonymous]

I think it's gross to use other peoples towels. Working in a hospital over the years has shown me what actually gets on towels and trust me: these towels have had sex, blood, shit, piss and vomit on them. You couldn't pay me to take towels.

They are probably being added to their bill. I wouldn't mention it unless it becomes a storage issue (ie where do you want all the new towels and do you want to throw out any old ones/do you want me to drop the freebie products at a shelter?)

[Anonymous]

It's fine to take the shampoo, etc. but not the linens. During college, I worked as a housekeeper in a 3-4 star business hotel. We generally tossed the shampoo bottles between guests since it was hard to tell if the bottle had been used and didn't contain enough product for the next guest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, This family has over 200 towels and over 50 pillows ( all with hotel labels ) so I don't think they steal out of need - I think it's just bad habit. Though I do not know how much they earn, the couple have big respectable job tittles - it's such a shame.

Hoarders that steal. Great. There's probably more going on behind the scenes so try to keep your head above the flow of dysfunction and start looking for the next gig.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to work in a hotel for many years and was shocked by what people took. Art work, comforters, pillows, linens, art work, even an ironing board. Many hotels have offered programs for you to buy the items in the room, but it sounds like you are saying they don't do that.

Depending on where they are staying and what they are taking, some hotels will charge. There is a large difference between making a mistake and taking something vs. blatantly stealing stuff. When it comes to towels, for a hotel to charge a guest, it isn't all that easy. The guest could easily reply, "oh, I took that to the pool" or make up another excuse.

I find it shocking what people people take from a hotel. Typically, the response is, "Well, I am paying for the stuff, so I can take it." It ultimately is what is driving up the cost of your average night rate. Even the shampoo and conditioner items. A hotel budgets only so much for each guest. Taking multiple items, causes higher costs...eventually.

ok, you lost me at the shampoo and conditioner comment, you can't reuse it for another guest, so why the hell shouldn't I take that? Should I just leave it for the maid to toss?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's gross to use other peoples towels. Working in a hospital over the years has shown me what actually gets on towels and trust me: these towels have had sex, blood, shit, piss and vomit on them. You couldn't pay me to take towels.

They are probably being added to their bill. I wouldn't mention it unless it becomes a storage issue (ie where do you want all the new towels and do you want to throw out any old ones/do you want me to drop the freebie products at a shelter?)

Do you bring your own towels then?

[Anonymous]

"Do you bring your own towels then?"

OMG of course!! I don't think I'm alone in this!

I also bring my own lysol wipes to clean the bathroom before we use it... the wipes end up BLACK... what you think is clean is not clean, people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"Do you bring your own towels then?"

OMG of course!! I don't think I'm alone in this!

I also bring my own lysol wipes to clean the bathroom before we use it... the wipes end up BLACK... what you think is clean is not clean, people.

I'm not sure I want to know where you stay. We also bring disinfecting wipes, but only because my wife is on immuno-suppression (she's a transplant patient) and she catches anything and everything. But although we wipe down surfaces for germs, I've never had a wipe come up with more than just a little brown, never black. And we wipe down door knobs, telephone, refridgerator, sinks, sink taps, etc, basically any surface where there are likely to be a lot of hands touching that may or may not have been washed.

We stay exclusively in Marriott chain properties, if that matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"Do you bring your own towels then?"

OMG of course!! I don't think I'm alone in this!

I also bring my own lysol wipes to clean the bathroom before we use it... the wipes end up BLACK... what you think is clean is not clean, people.

I'm not sure I want to know where you stay. We also bring disinfecting wipes, but only because my wife is on immuno-suppression (she's a transplant patient) and she catches anything and everything. But although we wipe down surfaces for germs, I've never had a wipe come up with more than just a little brown, never black. And we wipe down door knobs, telephone, refridgerator, sinks, sink taps, etc, basically any surface where there are likely to be a lot of hands touching that may or may not have been washed.

We stay exclusively in Marriott chain properties, if that matters.

You should also get one of those light wands that detect body fluids. I saw a program where the wanded rooms in some pretty nice hotels and came up with all kinds of gross stuff on the floor, on the bed and in the bathroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You should also get one of those light wands that detect body fluids. I saw a program where the wanded rooms in some pretty nice hotels and came up with all kinds of gross stuff on the floor, on the bed and in the bathroom.

While it sounds cool and so CSI, I think it only works on blood. If I remember, the chemical that they spray around will luminesce if in contact with hemoglobin, but not with other body fluids. I haven't found anything that would do what you suggest in my late-night Internet browsing. If you've heard of a product that works, let me know and I'll look into it. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You should also get one of those light wands that detect body fluids. I saw a program where the wanded rooms in some pretty nice hotels and came up with all kinds of gross stuff on the floor, on the bed and in the bathroom.

While it sounds cool and so CSI, I think it only works on blood. If I remember, the chemical that they spray around will luminesce if in contact with hemoglobin, but not with other body fluids. I haven't found anything that would do what you suggest in my late-night Internet browsing. If you've heard of a product that works, let me know and I'll look into it. Thanks.

We have one that works on pet urine. The previous owners of our house had a cat, and one day we noticed a strange smell--we wondered if it was cat urine, so we bought the light at Petsmart....as it turned out, the area where we suspected cat pee did not"glow", but we know it works because we used the light in our boys' bathroom, and some parts of the floor "glowed" . Yuck, I know.