Working in the hospitality industry is hard enough as it is without any curveballs. However, sooner or later, they’re pretty much inevitable. Have you ever had a hard day at work, only to be completely taken by surprise at how much worse things could get? Like, on a scale you couldn’t even have imagined. At that moment, you might have thought to yourself that you don’t get paid enough for this.

Redditors who have worked in the hotel industry opened up about the most bizarre experiences they’ve ever had. In a candid r/AskReddit thread started up by u/Slider-678, they revealed not only how extremely odd some of the guests were, but also how strange their own colleagues were. Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole? Hang on to your hats and scroll down for some of the most peculiar hotel stories.

Read More: 29 Hotel Workers Share Their Most Unforgettable Experiences With Guests

#1

I have some longer stories, but I have a short crazy one. I worked at a waterpark hotel, and for Easter one year they decided to host a massive Easter Egg hunt with over 500 eggs, including a smaller Golden egg that was worth a cash prize. They went ALL OUT for the marketing campaign on it; it was all over the website, tv and radio ads, they even went so far to get local news stations to mention it at the end of segments. The hype was huge, locally and otherwise.

The planners unfortunately overlooked a massive detail: one of the major perks of staying at the hotel was guests could enter the park 2 hours before the general public. The big day arrived, and it only took minutes to realize their mistake as hotel guests immediately began hunting down the eggs. By the time the doors officially opened to the massive crowd of excited kids and expectant parents 2 hours later, ALL of the 500+ eggs had already been found. To top it off, the heating system for the water broke down. So the park was packed to capacity, no eggs, and without heat in snowy Minnesotan April, the water was ice cold.

The backlash was spectacular.

Image credits: Wolvensong

#2

Working at a luxury hotel, I once got a call to remove a snail from a guests room as it was “coming after them” and that they were “afraid for their young child”

Image credits: Additional-Car2163

#3

I worked in a decent hotel in college, was the night auditor. One night the police came in and went directly to a room around 2am. They escorted a prostitute out and asked to speak to the manager.

After they were done speaking with my manager the officer handed me the phone and she told me to go in and clean up the room. I never made beds or did any of that so I wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted. I went to the room and there was trash everywhere. There were uncapped syringes, used packages that had contained drugs and general filth everywhere. I called the manager back to tell her that I wasn’t touching anything because of the uncapped syringes. They were literally all over the place and I wasn’t going to pick up piles of clothes or move blankets.

The manager said that if I didn’t clean the room I was fired. I said fine, you have a half an hour to get here because I am leaving. I was the only one there overnight. As she pulled into the parking lot a short time later I walked over to my car, didn’t even wait for her to get inside.

Image credits: EntrepreneurNo1145

#4

White dude, 6’3″, long gross dreadlocks and a Rasputin beard. Black gunky fingernails like a fairy-tale witch. He was all greasy and covered in what looked like soot. But hey he had an ID and a valid matching credit card so I said sure I’ll check you in. Don’t judge a book by its cover. This man dragged in a military duffle bag and went to his room. Our desk was directly adjacent to the elevator with the doors just to our right so we see everyone who comes and goes. Dude comes down about every 20 mins to “have a cigarette”. Walk out our front doors and we have smoking stations on either side of the door. You know those little sand pits for cig butts… Dude lights a cig. Takes a drag, gently sets it down in the sand. Walks over to the other side of the door. Lights another. Drags it. Sets that one down. Proceeds to walk back and forth dragging only once at each cig before returning to the other. Goes on like this for about 10 mins. Maybe he lit some more cause I feel like two cigs won’t last you 10 mins at the rate he was going. Anyways, then he goes back to his room and comes back 20 mins later and does it again… And again all afternoon. Guy comes out once more around 5pm and just blankly stares through the doors at the desk agents while he does his ritual. Then he just walks off. Disappears. Never comes back… Now I’m curious. So I go up with security to see if he destroyed the room. We open the door and immediately get a blast with the smell of bleach. The duffle bag he took up was on the bed. The bag was filled with like plastic Walmart bags. About 12 of them all tied up tight but filled with clothes literally soaking in bleach. Then we started to notice all these post it notes all over the place. Tons of them, like more than 100. Tucked in the corner of mirrors and picture frames and under the bed and taped all up inside the bathroom. All folded up. Naturally we open a few to see what they contain. Idk if this is some Magic the gathering lingo or dungeons and dragons talk but they all said like “+6 sword damage” “-3 mana” “+2 intelligence” and my personal favorite “x10 power to the 4th Mage” so we took to calling this dude the 4th Mage. Guy never came back for his murder clothes or what ever the hell his bleach soaked menagerie of t shirts was about… Anyways, if you ever see the 4th Mage in the Midwest, tell him he forgot his bag in Minnesota

Image credits: Jester651

#5

I used to work at a hotel. I post on these guests often and I always intend on doing so. Three guests come to mind:

1) Guests wiped in the towels, smeared it on the walls, and laughed at housekeeping when they came in for service

2) Young lady (who was certainly no lady) stuck her used tampon on the bathroom wall, the blood acted as a glue and cemented itself there. It had to be pried off

3) Guests left three week old expired milk in the fridge. But they were only in house for three days so that means it was already two and a half weeks expired when they checked in. Who lugs around rotten milk?

Image credits: llcucf80

#6

Was just about to start my shift in the morning, and was chatting with a co worker outside while she had a smoke.

It was still dark out, and out of nowhere this guy muttering something about his dead family came up to us with a 2×4 and raised it up to hit my co worker in the head, I just reacted and stepped between them and raised my arm to take the blow… and the guy just stopped mid swing. He was face to face with me, with this 2×4 raised baseball bat style, and then he just ran off and dropped it.

My co worker ran up and grabbed it after so he couldnt use it again, and when we brought it inside, thats when we realized it was full of nails. Very glad neither of us got hit with that!

I have plenty of other crazy stories, but that one takes the cake for the scariest for sure.

Image credits: Youpunyhumans

#7

Worked in a restaurant that was part of a hotel, so I guess this kind of counts.

Had a sommelier (wine expert) who worked in our restaurant – 50’s, couple of kids, divorced, living in a ski town for the past 15 years. One night a guest came in, and over the course of about 2 hours, ordered around $6,000 worth of wine (he bought 3 $2000 bottles, not totally unheard of in our fine dining restaurant, but not common either).

Our sommelier sat down and drank all of it with him, getting absolutely hammered drunk, while running up a huge food tab (again, not uncommon for the som to have a glass of wine, but not three bottles). Overall bill was around $8000 with tip, and my manager was stoked on the big sale. About an hour later, he’s flipping out – our som left with the guy to ‘go get his credit card at the hotel’ and never came back.

Manager has one of our bussers track the som down. Turns out the guest was a disgraced exec who was in a massive amount of debt and couldn’t pay the bill – when the som found out, he was too embarrassed to come back and face the music. Our manager fired him.

Image credits: StaleBiscuit13

#8

High strung cook had an argument with a-type bistro attendant. It just kept escalating to a pull-apart brawl when a kitchen knife got involved. The pair crashed through the swinging door and was rolling on the carpet when the regional manager just happened to be walking in. Cops were called, I think both got fired or arrested.

Image credits: The68Guns

#9

Had a housekeeping friend show me a mummified pair of brown tighty whities that were found in between the mattress and the box spring. They were super tough like fiberglass.

Image credits: natronmooretron

#10

A older gentlemen checked out a room and started to carry in his luggage, which was a bunch of camera equipment, Followed by a younger gentlemen, maybe low 20s , who looked like he was heavy into drugs.

I’m just glad I did not have to clean that room, Poor kid though.

Image credits: TechnicalChipz