I adore staying in hotels—especially if they’re deluxe ones—with their crisp sheets, grand bathrooms with deep sunken tubs, room service, wonderful views, and deep pile carpeting. There’s something sumptuously decadent about climbing out of a bubble bath after a good long soak and wrapping yourself in a luxuriously thick, oversized hotel bathrobe, your feet snug in monogrammed slippers, sipping tea while watching news in a foreign language on a huge flat screen TV.
I have to admit it, though … I love swiping those wee bottles of lotion, shampoo, bubble bath (even though I don’t have a tub in our place—go figure), and the complimentary packed toothbrush as souvenirs of every trip. Hubby, bless him, always sneaks off with the little elegantly wrapped rounds of soap and if you peek into our bathroom cabinet, there they are, evidence of his larcenous heart, stacked one atop the other like so many little pancakes.
Some people, however, don’t stop at petty theft of toiletries (which are complimentary anyway). Apart from the usual washcloth or remote controls that hotel guests take home when they check out, there have been reports of these astoundingly outrageous appropriations, as reported by the Hotel Interactive Web site:
1. Perennially popular with rock ’n’ roll bands, the Phoenix Hotel in San Francisco will not be checking in one reggae singer who took one of the koi fish from the courtyard fishpond. Not only did he take the fish but hotel personnel noticing a strange odor found the guest had cooked the fish on a hot plate in his room.
2. A thief at the Benson Hotel in Portland, Oregon chiseled out and stole a statue built into the wall of a suite. Guests are usually associated with stolen items but in this case, a former assistant manager was found to be the culprit. He admitted it took close to an hour to chisel out the statue.
3. One of two 250-pound iron statues resembling greyhound dogs who kept watch in the garden of the Broadmoor Hotel and Resort in Colorado Springs “took a walk” with an unknown guest. The missing statue was later found in an un-booked hotel room apparently because the thief could not complete the job.
4. Another guest at the same hotel once stripped an entire room. He or she took a television, artwork, even a mini-bar by using an exit stairway.
Wash cloths, towels, chandeliers, duvet covers, even a 42 inch plasma TV, have been reported stolen from hotels.
Soooooo ... fess up! What have YOU swiped from the last hotel you stayed in?
