Lost and found in hotel rooms

I was amazed to read recently that hotel rooms “lose” a lot of things to its overnight guests. I am not talking about those tiddly little bottles of shampoo and tiny soaps (that you can never open). Those are fair game as far as I am concerned. I used to regularly steal the shower caps for my friend’s mom and an extra packet of emery boards is always handy to have around. No, I am talking about HUGE things going missing. Like mattresses. Yes that’s right. Can you imagine stealing the mattress from your hotel room?

This was reported recently by CNN as follows (it’s worth a read) –

“An astonishing 49 hotels reported that mattresses had been stolen from their premises since January 2018, CEO of Wellness Heaven Tassilo Keilmann told CNN, adding it was likely hotels could have suffered multiple thefts.

“They told me that it usually happens in the night — when the reception is not open, when there is nobody there. Some of them have security camera footage showing them transporting it to the elevator,” Keilmann told CNN.

While towels, bathrobes and coat hangers were the items most frequently pilfered, guests also tried to steal bulkier or more expensive items, including tablet computers and TV sets, the survey of mostly European and Asian proprietors found.

“This was surprising to me, because it is quite easy for the hotel group to determine which person stole it, because the maid will look after checkout, and it’s easy to say this guest stole the TV or the mattress,” Keilmann added. 

Wellness Heaven surveyed 634 four-star and 523 five-star hotels, and observed a “striking difference” between the guests — researchers said TV sets, tablet computers and mattresses were stolen more frequently in five-star establishments, whereas four-star guests were more interested in batteries and remote controls.

One of the most surprising thefts, Keilmann told CNN, was a stuffed boar’s head taken from a hotel in France. “

Oh I know how – you would just have to take it back to your room and cook it somehow – wrap it up in a bit of tinfoil and it makes the perfect mid-flight snack. Think I am joking ???

Well I guess it is one thing to smuggle out a boar’s head from a hotel. But what about that mattress? Especially if you have specifically requested a king size bed! I can barely flip my mattress at home. I just can’t imagine how they got it out of the door and into the elevator but they did – and were captured in the act by security cameras.

Other weird things they reported stolen were the remote controls. Now I am not a techy person but what on earth would you do with a remote? Would you be able to configure it for your TV at home. Why? Why I ask you with tears in my eyes (laughter!!)

But it’s all OK – we take and we leave. Really strange things. Just google it and you will find endless lists ….like this one ….

• A dead alligator.
• “Cats. …
• A goat dressed like Abraham Lincoln.
• A Bible full of cat photos.
• A suitcase full of prosthetic legs.
• A land deed and title to land in the Scottish Highlands.
• A bathtub full of potatoes.
• Six full-size fully decorated Christmas trees.

But nothing beats the guest who stayed at a hotel in Stratford Upon Avon, England and left behind her alpacas …. yes…. plural….

You have to wonder what the alpacas thought of that….