The strangest items left in hotel rooms

July 28, 2009 9:05 AM

Hoteliers reveal some of the most bizarre items that guests have left behind.
posted by nam3d (53 comments total)

Cooking your food over a toilet = best idea ever...
posted by gloege at 9:13 AM on July 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

"a six-foot high model helicopter"

Is that a very large model, or one that is hanging six feet in the air?
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 9:13 AM on July 28, 2009

Both Travelodge and Swallow Hotels claim that they have discovered artificial limbs in their rooms after guests have checked out. In one year, between 2003 and 2004, Travelodge says 80 false limbs were left behind in its various outlets.

Flannery O'Connor would have approved.
posted by spoobnooble at 9:14 AM on July 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

I recently left eighty neodymium magnets, a silk shirt, and a pair of scuba flippers in a pool-lacking hotel in the midst of Missouri. Kinda wish I had the magnets back.
posted by adipocere at 9:22 AM on July 28, 2009

A showjumping horse was found in a hotel room in Droitwich in Worcestershire.

Hahaha! How do you not notice someone taking a horse into their room?
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:25 AM on July 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Strangest things found on the Telegraph website:

Article consisting of random stock photos
posted by demiurge at 9:27 AM on July 28, 2009 [23 favorites]

Article consisting of random stock photos

Not only that, but I'd bet money this is a Travelodge press release rewrite. Whoever does press for Travelodge is very, very good at getting hotel- and travel-related human interest stories into the UK papers - 'OAP couple stay in Travelodge for years because it's cheaper than sheltered accomodation' and 'teens can't find top tourist destinations on map' being a couple of recent ones. Once you notice this, it seems like every other filler piece or silly season story mentions a Travelodge survey or quotes their spokesperson.
posted by jack_mo at 9:41 AM on July 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

Thank goodness they included a picture of a car, or I wouldn't have had any idea what they were talking about.

Also, I didn't click all the way through once it became clear that this slideshow was utterly useless, but if none of these was a disturbingly large sex toy, then we're being lied to.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:43 AM on July 28, 2009

Only a few of those items are actually "bizarre". Car keys? Give me something good like a 5 gallon bucket of giraffe gonads.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:43 AM on July 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I accidentally left a jar of pot butter in a Travelodge once. I wouldn't mind as much if I thought it would get used, but I imagine it just got thrown away.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 9:47 AM on July 28, 2009

Yeah, "corpse" is really big news. "Octogenarian dies in his sleep at local motel." STOP THE PRESSES!
posted by Skot at 9:49 AM on July 28, 2009

someone left their car keys in a hotel, and now we have an FPP about it.... damn, we're cutting edge here!
posted by HuronBob at 9:53 AM on July 28, 2009

Thank goodness they included a picture of a car, or I wouldn't have had any idea what they were talking about.

It isn't even the right car. The text says "Porsche 911", the picture shows a Porsche Cayman...
posted by Skeptic at 9:55 AM on July 28, 2009

on this page, with a picture of body-less legs.....on the right is a link to another article entitled "Ryanair to make passengers stand"

coincidence????? I think not...
posted by HuronBob at 9:57 AM on July 28, 2009

My girlfriend and I were invited to a family wedding in another city. When we got there, we found that my brother had booked adjoining rooms for himself and his family, my mom, and us. We then switched rooms with Mom so we could have a king-sized bed.

Being a fairly new couple and still in the randy phase, we brought along several, um, toys with us, which we used to good effect. Ahem. You sort of see where this is going—yup, we got several hours along on our way home before realizing we'd forgotten them. We made an awkward call to the hotel staff, as much for the benefit of the subsequent guests of the room as for the possibility of getting used, un-washed pre-marital aids back. Apparently, the room had been cleaned, but the maid hadn't reported anything odd, and now there were new lodgers in there. Were the items tossed, did the new resident find them, what'd he think? Kinda funny story, but not that funny, so far.

A week or so later, I was on the phone with Mom, who revealed that she, too, had left something behind in the hotel, a phone charger, I think it was, and would be returning to the hotel in a few weeks to retrieve the item. Remembering that we'd switched rooms, but had never changed the registration, I felt a strong need to ensure that she picked up the correct item, hers, not ours, so I sorta kinda obliquely mentioned that we'd left something behind, too, so she should make sure the size of the package she picked up was consistent with a charger, something like that. Of course, being the helpful mom that she is, she offered to pick up our items and send them to us.

What happened next may have been the clearest communication I've ever had with my mom. I told her, very directly, that I'd rather not have the items back if it meant the possibility of her knowing what they were. She didn't ask--she paused, only for a second, before saying a simple "OK," and changing the subject. The episode was never mentioned again.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:57 AM on July 28, 2009 [46 favorites]

I once left my heart in San Francisco.
posted by spoobnooble at 9:59 AM on July 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

MrMoonPie has a great mom.
posted by not that girl at 10:09 AM on July 28, 2009 [8 favorites]

I left a pair of blue jean shorts ("jorts") in a New Orleans hotel while in junior high school. I'd like to thank a deity for that wise move that saved me countless fashion faux pas.
posted by fijiwriter at 10:12 AM on July 28, 2009

A horse? How did they get it in the room in the first place?
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 10:13 AM on July 28, 2009

Reminds me of Sophie Calle's The Hotel.
posted by twins named Lugubrious and Salubrious at 10:16 AM on July 28, 2009

Did silly season start early this year at the Telegraph?
posted by Nelson at 10:27 AM on July 28, 2009

I left my harp in Sam Frank's disco.

Sorry, bad punchline to an old joke, but it pops into my head whenever I see "I left my heart in San Francisco."
posted by jquinby at 10:27 AM on July 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

*knock, knock*
Howdy, UPS here...did somebody order a 5-gallon bucket of giraffe gonads?
cheers, great...can you sign right here.
posted by sexyrobot at 10:28 AM on July 28, 2009

I'm surprized "dead hooker" didn't feature more prominently on that list.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:30 AM on July 28, 2009

I once left my heart in San Francisco.

Outside a disco? Yeah, I found that.
posted by julie_of_the_jungle at 10:34 AM on July 28, 2009

I left a pair of dress shoes in a hotel room in Germany. They were really nice, and quite expensive, and close to brand new.

That was irritating, and not funny at all.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:35 AM on July 28, 2009

That's the coolest set of false teeth I've ever seen. Not only gold teeth but the left is a crown.
posted by Mitheral at 10:46 AM on July 28, 2009

I once left my heart in San Francisco.

Outside a disco? Yeah, I found that.

Worst shaggy dog joke ever.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:49 AM on July 28, 2009

That's the coolest set of false teeth I've ever seen.

If only that was the actual set of chompers that was found.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:49 AM on July 28, 2009

How did they know the lizard's name was Humphrey?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:56 AM on July 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I once left a sledgehammer in a Motel 6, and they didn't even blink when I went back and asked for it, and said they'd seen a lot weirder.
posted by weston at 10:56 AM on July 28, 2009

What kind of fool finds a false limb in a hotel room and then turns it in? I'd totally keep that free leg!
posted by orme at 11:01 AM on July 28, 2009

I cannot possibly convey my disappointment that some Scot left a fake sheep in their hotel room. They've gotten soft.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:07 AM on July 28, 2009

A diamond right is "strange"? Hardly.

This article had such potential. All of it wasted.
posted by dejah420 at 11:15 AM on July 28, 2009

er..ring. I diamond "right" might be interesting.
posted by dejah420 at 11:16 AM on July 28, 2009

I made the claim that the Telegraph was a decent paper in a recent thread on the UK press. Oh dear.
posted by Abiezer at 11:20 AM on July 28, 2009

A horse? Not bloody likely, especially a show jumper. Those things are worth five figures American if they can really jump, and even if they can't they're still worth a nice chunk of change.
posted by scratch at 11:21 AM on July 28, 2009

I once left a $50 bill and a long note thanking the cleaning person for taking such good care of my room during my two night stay. I explained that even though we would never meet, that I was thankful for the service provided. The note was just long enough to be really weird.
posted by mrmojoflying at 11:30 AM on July 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I left my wallet in El Segundo.
posted by P.o.B. at 11:42 AM on July 28, 2009

Things I've found in hotel rooms:

* an IV drug user's kit in a brown paper bag, shoved between the mattress and boxspring
* a page torn from a book, with poetry by a death-row murderer

posted by jtron at 12:11 PM on July 28, 2009

On the first leg of my honeymoon I thought it ever-so-clever to hide our condoms in the hotel bible as a joke on my almost painfully organized travel partner/spouse, who would surely notice their absence during his bizarre pre-checkout rituals and freak, out, man because NO CONDOMS on the honeymoon is a BIG DEAL. Of course he didn't notice and I forgot about it until we showed up at our next destination with no condoms. We did get his sister and her partner to drive us to a 7-11 a few days later but the whole thing was :( and I like to think about the lonely person who goes to flip through the bible and finds condoms and hopefully enjoys them somehow instead of becoming depressed or offended.
posted by kathrineg at 12:16 PM on July 28, 2009

When they get really bored writing the captions it's fun to imagine them as a dramatic monologue:

Snake
...a six-foot snake...
Whip
...a leather whip...
Rabbit
...a child's pet rabbit...
Skeleton
...a life-size skeleton...
Spider
...a pet tarantula...
Lizard
...and a lizard named Humphrey.
posted by odinsdream at 12:18 PM on July 28, 2009

I've left a six inch model helicopter in a hotel room. It was just not very good. To whomever it ended up with: if your disappointment was anything like mine, I apologize deeply.
posted by vanar sena at 12:45 PM on July 28, 2009

I really wanted to know how they knew the lizard was named Humphrey. Did he tell them?
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:01 PM on July 28, 2009

Two of my (male) friends who worked reception found a strange rubbery discy-thing left behind in one of the rooms and were playing Frisbee with it during the lulls in work.

The next day we got an email from a guest who had checked out the previous day asking if we had found her Diva cup and if so, could we mail it to her. The looks on their faces when I told them what the disc was still makes me chuckle to this day.
posted by romakimmy at 1:07 PM on July 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I really wanted to know how they knew the lizard was named Humphrey. Did he tell them?

The next guest was Harry Potter.
posted by misha at 1:28 PM on July 28, 2009

The helicopters with six feet are the really high models.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:54 PM on July 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

The people who find things between the mattress and box spring always intrigue me. What were they doing looking there in the first place?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:55 PM on July 28, 2009

JohnnyGunn: "The people who find things between the mattress and box spring always intrigue me. What were they doing looking there in the first place?"

That's where the porn is usually stashed.
posted by subbes at 3:47 PM on July 28, 2009

That's where the porn is usually stashed.

Forget the porn, that's where the drugs are always stashed. Just ask jtron. ;-) Uh huh. I work at a hotel sometimes. I don't clean the rooms but I have found some things just laying around that were surprising, and seen a lot of naked people, mostly in the elevator asking me for a spare key.
posted by IvoShandor at 4:41 PM on July 28, 2009

The people who find things between the mattress and box spring always intrigue me. What were they doing looking there in the first place?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:55 PM on July 28 [+] [!]

The funny thing with that example is that I was with my dad, and he was telling me that the first thing you should do in a hotel room you've just checked into is search the place, 'cause if there's any contraband left behind, and you get caught with it, Bad Things could happen. So I flipped the mattress and ta-DA!
posted by jtron at 5:18 PM on July 28, 2009

The next day we got an email from a guest who had checked out the previous day asking if we had found her Diva cup and if so, could we mail it to her.

Ignorant male that I am, I had to check what a "Diva cup" is. Fortunately, I guessed that it could be something embarrassing, so I used Wikipedia rather than Google.

Yes, I'd have liked to see your colleagues' faces. How did you explain them what it was?
posted by Skeptic at 9:00 AM on July 29, 2009

How did you explain them what it was?

I think it went something along the lines of:

"It's a menstrual cup."
"A what?"
"A rubber cup you put up your hooha to catch the blood when you're on the rag."
"AAAHH!"

But I honestly don't remember the exact phrasing, since immediately after I explained it I was laughing so hard I had stomach cramps for 30 minutes.

There was also that time that a Brazilian guest emailed us saying we had a very nice place, but should control the other guests more. Since we didn't do anything about the loud Irish dorm mate keeping him awake, he had left something behind for said Irishman:

He shat in the Irish guy's shoe and took pictures, sending them along with his complaint email.

I guess you could literally call it "leaving shit behind" in that case...
posted by romakimmy at 9:24 AM on July 29, 2009