10 Travelers Who Took “Breaking the Rules” Way Too Far

Traveling is supposed to be fun, but some guests take “breaking the rules” to a whole new level. From clever schemes to accidental disasters and outright chaos, these travelers prove that staying somewhere else can be an extreme sport. Buckle up, these stories are wild, messy, and unforgettable!

Some guests who tried to outsmart the hosts

• My parents had a vacation apartment rental business in Miami Beach. Once, a client of theirs who had JUST received the keys called back about 5 minutes later to complain that there were Oreos all over the floor, so she should get a discount or a few days free.
  The twist here is that when my parents handed her the keys, they saw her lay out her previously bought groceries on top of the counter, one of which was Oreos. She bought them for the sole purpose of throwing them all around the floor in hopes of getting a measly discount. © N1COLAS13 / Reddit

• Everything was great until the last night. My Airbnb guest called and said the house was very warm, and she didn’t think she would be able to sleep that way. So I said, just turn the AC on. I didn’t hear anything back from her until the next morning. She said she could barely get through the night, and it was so hot because the AC was broken.
  So I get home and notice that the AC unit was on and blowing cool air, but she had moved the unit close to the bed and detached the exhaust hose, so all the warm air was blowing out the back and into the room. © pokemon-collector / Reddit

• I used to manage a tiny family motel, and one guest made me uneasy from the start. He treated the place like it was his own apartment. He dragged chairs out of the lobby, took one of the hallway paintings, and kept rearranging his room like he was decorating it.
  And I don’t mean once or twice, he was doing this for days. When I asked him to stop, he just shrugged and smiled at me and barely responded.
  I ended up brushing it off because he was only staying four days, and we were almost empty that week. Then around 2 a.m., I woke up to the sound of furniture scraping and finally snapped. I walked to his room, opened the door, and froze.
  The place was packed with cameras and huge lights. The chairs and painting were just props. He had turned the motel room into some kind of set and was streaming live from it. I still don’t know for what.
  Nothing else ever happened, but the whole thing felt wrong in a way I can’t explain. Even now, thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. I was just relieved when he checked out the next day.

When carelessness turns into a full-blown disaster:

• I was a housekeeper for a summer, and we had one guest who put the “do not disturb” sign up for the whole week he was there. So nobody knew until after he’d checked out that he’d managed to get the window open and punch out part of the screen. At some point after this, he left a bunch of food out on every possible surface and left the lights on at all times.
  When we opened the door to clean the room, there was just a WALL of bugs in the air and all over the nasty food, which smelled like a dumpster at that point. We had to close off the room for almost two weeks while we called in the kind of professional cleaners that deal with hoarder houses and stuff to make it habitable again. © LoneWanderess / Reddit

• I worked at a high-end resort up in Lake Tahoe. It was a busy weekend during the summer, with plenty of tourists. We never really got very many people on the way to or from Burning Man. Partly because of the distance, partly the price.
  A young couple had decided to spend the night there on the way to Burning Man. The resort is at about 6k feet in a nice pine meadow. We always had bee problems during the summer. All of our rooms were privately owned, and we would rent them out when the tenants weren’t visiting. This helped pay the yearly cost of around a million bucks or so.
  The young couple checked into a nicer room that had a full kitchen. The morning before they left for Burning Man, they cooked 500 pounds of bacon. They had the windows open because of the smoke and smell.
  5 hours later, housekeeping can’t even get into the room to clean due to all of the bees chewing through the screens on the open windows. We ended up shutting down an entire floor. © Retro10ten / Reddit

People who left their mark — everywhere.

• We had a couple staying with us, and just from checking them in, I could tell there was some tension between them. I leave my shift, and when I come back in the morning, I see a cherry picker out front.
  Turns out the couple continued the fight in their room. They ended up breaking furniture, smashing framed pictures, and eventually, one of them threw a bottle through the glass window, smashing a car’s windshield in the process.
  In total, it was around $6000 in damages (not including the car windshield). The dude had the nerve to call a month later and ask why we charged his credit card. © rrr_zzz / Reddit

• A family group of 12 checked in my villa this weekend. 4 kids, rest adults. We have a portable badminton net at the lawn adjacent to the pool and the family decided to play volleyball with it, Inside the pool! So, they drag it inside and, in the process, end up damaging it.
  I have been hosting since 4 years now and am used to petty damages as such, but rarely hold guests accountable. But, during checkout, my caretaker notices the damage and asks them to pay up (barely 1/4th of the cost of the replacement).
  The guests’ argument: “It’s not mentioned that we can’t take the net into the pool.” Yes! We don’t mention “Don’t take random items in the pool.” © Rahul_Kolge / Reddit

• We always had problems with the girls who were the racetrack ’talent’/bikini models. They basically were paid a flat fee to go to the track, dance around, and try to get guys to buy t-shirts or car parts.
  So we had one pair that was probably the worst. They got one of the racers to bring his motorbike into the hall, tore up everything, slashed the walls, dumped soda all over, wrote messages on their door in lipstick, and started to put their kisses all over the walls in the bathroom.
  The craziest part is that they taped up a piece of pizza to the window. That one was a big pain because most of the girls were getting their rooms covered by whatever shady company was paying to bring them in, and as such had no desire to pay for their damages. Ended up taking them and the company that booked them to court. © stillinger27 / Reddit

• The family of 10 booked into a two-story 2-bedroom suite with a kitchen, three or four adults, and the rest were kids. They stayed for one night. They brought a ton of their own food, we found it shoved into couch cushions, pizza was stuck to the walls and ceilings, crackers were smashed into the carpets, and soup was spilled everywhere.
  Towels had been ripped up, sheets and blankets were everywhere, the bathroom was revolting, and I am quite sure not one of them was toilet-trained. There were broken dishes, holes in the walls, garbage strewn everywhere, and dirty clothes all over the place.
  The housekeeping manager came to our front office, had the hotel manager come and take a look. She promptly grabbed a camera and called the police to file a property damage complaint. Maintenance estimated the damage and clean-up to be over $2500.00. With the police report filed, the managers then charged their credit card for the damages.
  The next day, the family actually showed up at the hotel to protest it!!! They claimed they had a right to do whatever they wanted since they had paid the rate for the night. It went all the way to arbitration before they conceded, wasn’t too difficult after that photos were shown to the mediator. © 7_up_curly / Reddit

And then here’s the discovery that belongs in a mystery novel.

• Found this in an Airbnb behind a curtain we were told not to open. I still have no idea what it was meant to be. © Writhingramenpil / Reddit

And the replies turned the photo into a mini horror story:

• You will now see this in your dreams. You were warned. © Prestigious_Emu6039 / Reddit
• Get out of the house now!!! © RooneyD / Reddit

Whether it’s trying to get free stuff, leaving a trail of destruction, or creating nightmare-worthy surprises, these travelers show that not everyone respects someone else’s space. Next time you check in somewhere, just remember: leave the Oreos on the counter, close the windows, and maybe don’t cook 500 pounds of bacon!

And if you enjoy stories where people finally get clever payback, do not miss the article about a tenant who decided to fight back in the most unexpected way.