Thread by @SarahJamieLewis

RE: Hotel room security inspections/privacy violations. I'd like to share an experience I had a few years ago, and one of the reasons why I now never leave anything of value in hotel rooms ever / deadbolt/latch lock doors / blacklist hotels.

I was on a very brief 2 night stop in Montreal before flying back to Vancouver and since I only needed to do a few business meetings I was staying at a hotel near the airport - as a side note, this is absolutely the worst way to experience Montreal.

I was spending most of my time working in my hotel room. So I had the Do not Disturb sign on the door and the latch lock on.

At about 3pm I heard some noises directly outside my door and the door unlocked and caught on the latch.

It was a hotel employee and they started to push the door back and forth trying to open it further, seemingly annoyed by the latch lock.

I got up (and threw a top on!) and walked over to the door, and asked what they wanted, that I wasn't expecting any staff / had a DnD sign.

Once they saw me they slammed the door shut and started walking off.

I unlatched my door opened and said "Excuse me! WTF was that!?", in more polite words.

But they walked off, more quickly and by the time I had grabbed my room key they were gone.

So I went to reception to ask who the fuck just tried to enter my room. They didn't know and refused to take it any further despite me asking.

So I gave up on that, and chalked it up a mistake.

I had been eating at the hotel bar because there is literally nothing around Montreal airport (this was before I was vegan!) and one of the bar staff recognized me from the previous night and asked how my day was.

I told her the story of the staff coming into my room and she grimaced said, paraphrasing "Oh fuck that was probably Frank, I've heard rumors of him going to female guests rooms...you probably don't want to leave any of your stuff around unattended"

My reaction was WTF!?!

We chatted for a little bit, and I found out that they wouldn't fire Frank because he had been there like a decade or something and was chummy with the manager, but that it was "well known".

I went back to try and complain but was shrugged off. I wrote to the corporate office and was never received a response.

And that's the story of why I now always deadbolt my door while I'm inside, travel light when I can, never leave anything of value in the room, and always make mental notes/take pictures of where/how I left things.

In general, I don't like hotels, I'm pretty paranoid in them, and have on more than one occasion walked around my floor aimlessly waiting for strange men to find their door/go away - whether that was completely warranted I couldn't give you an unbiased answer.

The idea of security guards banging on my door demanding to be let it would pretty much guarantee that I would never step foot in that or any related hotels ever again.

As @k8em0 says here, privacy is definitely a concern, but safety from violations/assault need to be considered by hotels in the way they conduct any kind of activity, especially around access to rooms.

https://twitter.com/k8em0/status/1029059605312065537