8 People Whose Hotel Experiences Were Horrifying Yet Hilarious

Staying at a hotel can lead to unexpected surprises, but sometimes those surprises are downright scary—and funny. Whether they were guests or staff, these eight people found themselves in situations that were as bizarre as they were unsettling. From nightmare encounters with unruly customers to shocking discoveries in hotel rooms, these stories take you on a wild ride. Yet, even in the midst of chaos, there’s always room for a good laugh.

• My friend runs an old motel. One night, I was hanging out with him when he got a call from a guest who heard a loud crash in the room next door. My friend checks the system—no one had booked the room. Both unnerved, we go to investigate together. We knock on the door. No answer. My friend unlocks it, and as the door creaks open, we see a cat sitting there in the middle of the room. It had knocked over a lamp, smashing it.
  The cat was super friendly and came right to us. We took it back to the office and looked at the room records. The previous guest had abandoned the cat when he checked out three days earlier. By the time we called him, he was already on the other side of the country and said he wasn’t coming back for the cat.
  My friend decided to keep her, and now she’s the motel cat. She roams the property, keeping mice and critters in check. She even has her picture on the wall as one of the ’employees.’ We’re still not sure how the maid service missed her when they cleaned the room. We think the vacuum probably scared her, and she hid somewhere. © mrsheikh / Reddit

• I used to work at a hotel. Once, guests left three-week-old expired milk in the fridge. But they had only been in the room for three days, which means it was already two and a half weeks expired when they checked in. Who lugs around rotten milk? © llcucf80 / Reddit

• I worked the night shift at a small hotel. One night, this older guy called the front desk around 2 a.m., absolutely panicked. He whispered, “There’s a ghost in my room! It’s hovering over my bed.”
  I run to his room. There he is standing in the corner, wide-eyed, pointing at the bed. I look and see that he had thrown his suit jacket over the back of a chair, and the silhouette it made in the dim light looked like a shadowy figure standing next to his bed.
  I casually grabbed the jacket, held it up, and said, “Here’s your ghost, sir.” He stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing. He checked out the next morning, leaving a glowing review about our “ghost-busting” service.

• I was working at a luxury hotel when I received a panicky call to remove a snail from a guest’s room, as it was “coming after them” and they were “afraid for their young child.” © Additional-Car2163 / Reddit

• I worked the night shift and was the only employee in the entire hotel one night. So around 3 a.m., I received a few calls about a fight in an upstairs hallway. I grabbed a pair of scissors and tucked them up my sleeve, then made my way upstairs to see what was going on.
  When I got there, there were two guys having a full-on brawl. I’m 6’2″ and very broad-shouldered, but these guys were taller and ripped. As I approached, a third guy, just as large as the other two, came out of a room, yelling, “Get away from him!”
  I stopped a ways back and shouted at them. They all stopped immediately and looked at me. I was getting ready to run for it when they all just deflated. The third guy went back inside, the other two let go of each other, they all hung their heads, and one mumbled, “I’m sorry,” under his breath.
  They looked like a bunch of toddlers who had just been caught stealing cookies. I told them they would have to leave right now, or I would call the police, and they all just nodded. They followed me onto the elevator and spent the whole time apologizing and pouting while I escorted them out. I have never seen a situation go from 100 to 0 so fast. © Vypernorad / Reddit

• Some rich kids from Chicago on a lacrosse team booked four rooms under the name of the only 21-year-old with them. They set off fireworks inside the mini-fridge. They ended up leaving behind a really nice wireless Bluetooth speaker, and I kept it instead of turning it in to the front desk. I knew they wouldn’t be coming back because of the fireworks. © icecreamupnorth / Reddit
  

• I had a very high-net-worth individual stay at the hotel I worked at for over a month. About two weeks in, they snuck into the staff access areas and found their way to us at 2 a.m. while we were doing closing. He apologized and asked if he could have a peanut butter sandwich and just chill for a bit, so we sat with this person who was worth billions while he chewed on a PB, and we talked about sports. He claimed he had had too much fancy food and bad company and just wanted to chill with “real people.” © Da33le / Reddit

• I was working in a pretty fancy hotel with international guests. One morning, I was walking down a hallway with a room attendant’s trolley when a guest approached me, trying to explain something. However, we didn’t speak the same language, which made it awkward. Eventually, he gestured for me to come to his room, so I followed him to the bathroom.
  I noticed the smell immediately as he pointed at his toilet, and when I looked, there was just this massive turd sitting there. He was still talking to me in his language, but I didn’t understand his point. Finally, he pressed the button to flush, the toilet flushed, his turd left our company, and he looked at me with such a strange, proud expression. I just smiled, gave him two thumbs up, and left. © Maciejk8 / Reddit

Most hotel guests have modest expectations—good food, a comfortable room, and a peaceful stay. But the people in this article were completely caught off guard by what awaited them at their accommodations.