8 Hotel Workers Reveal Creepy Situations They've Experienced on the Job

We spend all year looking forward to our vacations, eager to unwind in a comfortable hotel and indulge in room service. But how much do we actually know about what happens behind the scenes in these seemingly flawless establishments? The staff members are the ones who hold the secrets that hotels would rather keep hidden from us.

• One night, an odd-looking guest checked in. He had only a small, old suitcase—no other luggage. He requested room 303, which was strange because that room had been out of service for years due to repairs. I told him it wasn’t an option, but he insisted, so I finally relented. Curious, I decided to check the security cameras later.
  To my shock, I saw the door to room 303 wide open, lights flickering. I rushed upstairs, but when I arrived, the door was locked, just as I’d left it. There was no sign anyone had been there. I looked into the guest records and found something that made my stomach drop—someone with the same name as the mysterious guest had checked in exactly ten years ago... and passed away during his stay in room 303.
  No one could explain how he appeared again, but the encounter still sends chills down my spine to this day.

• When I used to work at a hotel, I once got into a lift on the top floor to head down. The lift stopped at the 4th floor, the door opened, and I saw people outside standing still, making no attempt to come in despite there being room for them. The automatic lift door then closed, and just before it was completely shut, I heard someone outside say, “Why is the lift so full of people?” © Unknown Author / Reddit

• I worked in a motel when I was 17 or 18. I was at the front desk when the housekeeping guy called me to check something out in a room that was being cleaned. I went up there, and the housekeeping guy was standing in the middle of the room, pointing up to the ceiling.
  There were a set of bare footprints on the ceiling, which is at least 10 feet high. Bare. Not shoes or slippers, and only in the middle—nowhere else. There was no way he could have jumped that high upside down, and there were no prints on the walls either. © Fluxywild/ Reddit
  

• Right here at work a few nights ago during the night shift, I was typing up an email to a customer when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I ignored it for a moment and kept working. Then it sunk in: it was a person just staring at me through the window.
  As I turned my head, they slowly walked out of my view toward the parking lot. So, I rushed outside to confront them, but they were gone— not a soul in sight for miles. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched for the rest of the night. © huphelmeyer / Reddit

• My cousin worked in a pretty popular hotel in New York City. There was a particular room that was always unoccupied, and the hotel staff would use it to take naps. My cousin threw her coat on a chair facing the window and took a nap in the bed. She said she felt the weight of someone getting into the bed, and she immediately sat up.
  There was no one in sight, but her coat was now on the bed, and the chair that had been facing the window was now facing the bed. It could have easily been her co-worker creeping in, but it was still spooky. © Unknown Author / Reddit

• Before I was born, my parents decided to move to the coast and open their own little seaside hotel. The first thing they did when they moved in was clean all the rooms, so they each took half to speed things up.
  My mom told me this story when I was little: She was in room number 8 vacuuming when the entire carpet started to ripple. When I was a child, I didn’t think this sounded scary at all; I just thought that maybe the carpet had gotten caught on the vacuum or something, so I never really thought about it again.
  Fast-forward to about a month ago: I remembered this old story and made fun of my mom a bit for thinking it was creepy when it was obviously explainable. She looked confused and told me I must not have understood her when I was little.
  Apparently, what had actually happened was that the entire carpet rippled in a constant fluid wave-like motion, and all the furniture—and herself—had been lifted up and down off the floor for about 10 seconds. She then screamed for my dad down the hallway and told him they were selling the place before it had even opened. He managed to convince her otherwise, but she never went back in that room. © Vicerine / Reddit

• My wife used to work as a night auditor at a hotel, where she experienced quite a bit with guests and the unexplained, particularly in room 303. Whenever she walked past it at night, the alarm clock in the room would go off, even though housekeeping claimed it was unplugged. The front desk kept a logbook of guest complaints, and most of those complaints were about room 303.
  Some examples include: pounding on the walls, feeling watched, seeing people, phones or alarms going off, TVs turning on or off, bathroom lights going on or off, hearing whispers or breathing, and many more. © RainSoaked / Reddit

• One evening, a lady came in holding a baby tightly wrapped in an old blanket. She asked for a crib, but I told her we didn't have one. She simply said, 'Ok,' and asked to be left alone.
  That night, I heard a baby crying endlessly from her room. I checked the security feed only to see her staring blankly at the wall —no baby in her arms. I hurried to her room and knocked. As my hand touched the door, the crying stopped immediately. She opened the door and thanked me for bringing the crib—though I hadn’t.
  I glanced into the room and saw an old crib in the corner, one I knew wasn’t from our hotel. The next morning, the woman was gone, but the crib was still there. Curious, I looked into our records and found out she had stayed at the hotel 40 years ago… with her baby!
  I’ll never forget the sound of that baby crying, even though no one really knows where it came from.

Prepare yourself for a major surprise — in this article, we’re pulling back the curtain to uncover the secrets that the staff and management of hotels would prefer to keep under wraps.