Pilfering hotel guests revealed

Towels were the most stolen items

Toilet seats and brushes, a medieval sword and a door hinge, are among items stolen from hotel rooms, a survey says.

A hotel owner's dog, a four foot high wooden bear, and a spy hole from a hotel room door are among others.

The survey of 1,000 hoteliers by Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine found pilfering by customers was widespread, with towels top of the list.

But guests can also leave surprising items behind, such as false teeth, false eyeballs, wigs and toupees.

As many as 6% reported people having left their family member behind before checking out.

Four per cent of those questioned had found artificial arms and legs.

A third of hoteliers said towels were the most commonly stolen items from their rooms, with one in five reporting bathrobes stolen as well.

More than 10% of staff reported toilet rolls as the items most often taken and 1% said penny-pinching guests would even steal the light bulbs from their rooms.

Are you guilty of pilfering from hotel rooms? Are you a hotelier with an interesting tale to tell? Is there anything that can be done to stop items being stolen? Send in your comments:

You could stop the stealing, by posting an inventory list in the hotel room with prices for each - and indicating that these are the charges to follow on your credit card if inventory check is not complete. Alternatively, the hotel could give a 'rebate' to quests who have not stolen inventory items. After all, the stolen items do push up the prices of hotel rooms.
Viv, London, UK

I've never taken anything from a hotel room , (except for the sewing kit). But I have been one of those people left behind by their family, when I was about 10 years old, at a hotel in the Lake District.
Douglas, Edinburgh

Surely stealing toilet rolls doesn't count. After all, it would hardly be reasonable to rent a hotel room on the understanding that it comes with toilet roll that you're not actually allowed to use.
Mark, Worthing, England

When I was at university, we went on a rugby tour in Wales and we had a competition to see who could bring back the most unusual item into the hotel at the end of an evening on the town. The chap who won bought a horse into the hotel but couldn't fit it through his door.
HARRY, Birmingham

Like Douglas from Edinburgh, I've never stolen anything from a hotel room. And to Mark from Worthing I say "Would you steal the toilet roll from a friend's house when you are invited to dinner?" Frankly, I am disappointed with the low level of ethics in this report - it reminds me of the attitude when playing games e.g. Monopoly that "You're allowed to cheat as long as you're not caught." Whatever happened to "Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself"?
Chris Booth, Valencia, Spain

Posting an inventory list in the hotel room with prices for each - and indicating that these are the charges is exactly the approached used by a hotel in Hong Kong. Every item was listed not just the towels, bathrobe and bath salts but also the "yellow toy duck" provided in the bathroom, the umbrella in the wardrobe and the disposable camera provided in the desk drawer!
Tom Nicholas, Ashford, Middlesex

I have to admit to taking each day's allocation of tea / coffee / hot chocolate home with me, assuming I don't drink them whilst staying in the hotel room, but then I don't believe that is stealing.
Rob Holman, Chislehurst, Kent, England

The items I am most likely to keep are the toiletries, especially if they are of high quality. The other item is a toilet roll as often the facilities at functions, mostly the ones held at French sports venues, I attend tend to run out of both these items by the end of the third day.
Hazel, UK

On a recent trip to the US, the hotel I stayed in had a notice saying that any items found to be missing after a guest had departed would be charged on to their credit card, it then gave a list of items and charges. The bath towels were of particular note, $5. I thought that this was exceptional value, paid the receptionist $20 and bagged four very fluffy Egyptian cotton bath towels, you would pay well over $5 for these in the UK.
Andrew, Ashford