1. Trusted Too Much
For every traveler, staying at a hotel or any available room is very common. Just a place to spend the nights instead of roaming around unfamiliar places at night.
It also means wanting to be secured for the night and the whole trip itself. However, for some people, that wasn’t always the case.
These people from the Reddit Community shared their nightmares during their travels in different accommodations they’ve stayed in. You might want to look around while checking these out!
My mom was traveling for work and sat next to a man (fellow business traveler) on the plane. They had a casual conversation and exchanged business cards.
Later that evening, she was in her hotel watching TV and got a phone call from the front desk that her husband was there, and they wanted to know if they could give him a key to the room.
Turns out the creep on the plane was pretending to be her husband to try to get into her room.
mmmannino
2. Mystery Caller
I was traveling out of the country right after finishing up a huge 5-day work event where I had about 10 hours of sleep total during the 5 days.
I got to the motel, which was kinda run down, and the carpet and blankets were damp, but I was so exhausted I didn’t even really think about it.
I fall asleep pretty much immediately at 8 PM local time.
At maybe 11 pm or so, I got a call from the motel phone saying there’s been a noise complaint. I tell them that’s impossible, and I’ve been sleeping. They asked me if maybe it was someone else in the room, and I told them nope, I was here alone, so no one else was making noise.
They asked me again if I was sure I was alone and not causing any noise. I say yes again. Fall back asleep immediately.
When I woke up and thought about it some more, I realized how weird the entire interaction was. There was absolutely no noise I could hear anywhere nearby, and I didn’t know why the motel staff needed to clarify so many times that I was alone.
Apparently, they never called. So, I assume it must’ve been someone calling the different rooms to see who was in the rooms and how many people. I’ve never been so glad to always use the extra latch chain lock.
[deleted]
3. Strict Couple
While in the aisles of Scotland, we stayed in a B&B. A couple owned it. The bedrooms were extremely well done and beautiful, but there were signs to not "touch" everything.
You would have to ask the couple to use the shower, and the Internet ended at 11 pm. The woman would also check on everyone at random times in the night, and we would hear creeping in the hallway to ensure "everyone was sleeping" and not doing illegal things like using the Internet.
When we checked out of her B&B, she came into our room and said that we "stunk" and opened the window to prove this and demanded money immediately.
Another traveler was kicked out of the B&B because the checkout time was 10 am, and they were forced to stand outside (she wouldn't even let them stay inside) in the thunderstorm while their taxi came.
Another traveler had to go to check in (we were in an isolated place) to pay for the room, and she took their bags and wouldn't give them back. But on the way out...she asked everyone if they enjoyed their stay!
commonvanilla
4. Forbidden Floor
Found a hotel in Yangon (Burma) for the day, and we got there for pretty cheap. They mentioned the low rates because maintenance was done on several floors. We slept fine, woke up, and headed to breakfast. At breakfast, we met some Germans who had also stayed the night in our hotel.
They said they had not slept well because someone woke them up to move them from the floor they were on in the middle of the night. We (us and the Germans) found out later that they had been moved because they were on one of the levels reserved for maintenance, and part of the maintenance included gassing the rooms for bugs.
During the middle of the night, they were just going around the rooms shoving the gas nozzle or whatever under the doors and letting them run; they wound up killing the two people next to the Germans before they realized they’d accidentally booked people on that floor.
Thankfully, we weren’t on that floor, but it has always stuck with me how seemingly easy it could’ve been to get mixed up in that.
chiefkhump
5. Movie Went Real
Family vacation. 1 am. My brother and I had just finished watching The Shining on TV. Neither of us had seen it before.
We heard someone trying to open our door. No one else was supposed to have keys.
Someone tried swinging the door open, but the hotel lock stopped them. They kept trying to open it multiple times, banging the door against the lock. After a few tries, they gave up. The hotel desk clerk accidentally entered the wrong room for their keycards.
It was probably the best way I saw The Shining. I can't be scared more than that from that movie.
helpicantchooseauser
6. Getting Kicked Out
When I was 12, I was staying in a motel with my mom on a road trip. We were in the middle of nowhere in Texas at a motel that had a decent rating in our guidebook and was really cheap, so we went for it.
In the middle of the night, the owner knocked on the door and told us we had to leave because he wanted the room for someone else (!!!) My mom was outside arguing with him while I was gathering our things, and I was terrified because I heard him start yelling.
I looked out the window and saw about half a dozen bikers in vests appear out of nowhere (maybe in a nearby room?) and start confronting the owner. My mom came inside quickly, and we watched them start harassing the guy, saying things.
Group of People: She’s paid to be here. You’re going to let her stay tonight! We don’t want to ever hear crap like this from you again!
Owner: I don’t want any trouble!
Everybody left fairly quickly, and we didn’t ever hear anything about it the next day at checkout. We couldn’t sleep very well because we were so shaken up, but it was better than getting in the car again.
Thank you, anonymous biker gang.
sweetrhymepurereason
7. The Strange Guy
So mine took place in a London hostel a few weeks ago. I have 2 friends with me who are both male, and we’re staying in a 9-bed mixed dorm. There are 3 sets of 3 tier bunk beds. I’m in the bottom bed of the right bunk, and friend 1 is in the top of my bunk, and friend 2 is in the bottom bed of the middle bunk.
So, we get in at 2 am and quietly get in our beds. After a few minutes of lying there trying to sleep, I hear rustling behind me (I’m lying on my side facing the wall). So, I think it is just someone going through their bag and ignoring it.
Then I feel a hand on my hip over the cover. I turn round, and a random guy tells me to move over and try to pull at my cover. I initially thought he was drunk and wasn’t sure which bed to be in, so I told him to go find his own bed, and then he shuffled away to the bottom bed of the left bunk.
Then he comes back again. I again tell him to go back to his own bed, and he shuffles back to his own again. This happened another couple of times, with me gradually speaking louder and getting less polite, telling him to back off.
So I’m shaking cause the situation is making me nervous, and I messaged my mate, who’s on the top bunk, saying I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep that night. He messages back casually, thinking it’s because of someone’s snoring. This is when I found out both my mates had earplugs in, and although they heard me speaking, they each thought I was speaking to the other friend. So I told him the situation, and he started keeping an eye out.
I hear the guy go to the en suite bathroom, but I can tell from the light that he left the bathroom door open and refused to look. My mate filled me in that the guy was walking around with his pants down and deliberately left the door open to get me to look, but either way, the guy went back to his bed after, and we thought the situation was finally over.
Then it happens again. My mate, keeping an eye out, shines his phone light on the floor and shouts for the guy to back off. Apparently, he was crawling across the floor again towards me.
The guy suddenly took offense at my mate's light shining on him and started climbing the bunk ladder like King Kong to get to my mate on the top, trying to take his phone. They wrestle for a while, with my mate actually kicking the guy in the neck to try and keep him away, only for the guy to swing backward and come straight back at him again.
I use this time to run for security, who find the guy still hanging on the bed when they get there, then call the police and have the guy taken away in a riot van and banned from the building.
Whilst the police had dragged him outside, waiting for the riot van, the guy even head-butted the brick wall several times.
I have no idea what that guy was on cause it wasn’t alcohol, but it was definitely on something to take a kick to the neck and still act like nothing happened afterward.
The guy kept trying to blame my mate when security came as well, saying things in broken English like, “Come up here and see how violent this guy is.”
My other mate, who had slept through the whole incident, kept saying the next day that he couldn’t believe how friendly everyone in London was.
Failed-Forward-Roll
8. Might Be A Ghost
A friend and I once stayed at a pretty fancy B&B for the night. The lady who owned it was absolutely lovely but would appear out of nowhere.
We’d be sitting alone in a large room with one doorway, and suddenly, she was in the room with us. Either this joint had secret doors, or something really creepy was going on.
She seemed to know things that we’d said or done as well.
The thing that tripped us out the most was hearing someone trying to open our door during the night. She was super lovely, and the building was beautiful, but we were relieved to check out the next morning!
redraymus
9. The Half Hotel
I arrive at a secluded coastal hotel south of Marmaris, Turkey, around 2 AM. It had been a long day in Istanbul, followed by a flight and long bus ride into Marmaris, where I haggled with non-English-speaking taxi drivers... who were unaware that this small resort existed. When the taxi pulls up to the hotel... it’s on fire.
When the owner, standing out front, sees us, he opens the taxi door excitedly, “You come. I have a nice room for you!” I point out that the hotel is on fire, but he simply gestures and says, “Small fire. No problem. You come.”
I. Am. Utterly. Exhausted.
I follow the owner into the hotel, stepping over fire hoses, waving away smoke, and passing firefighters as they run up and down a lovely staircase. We pause at the second-floor landing, and the owner tells me, “See. Fire only on this side of the hotel. This side has no fire. You come.”
My exhaustion removed every ounce of common sense, and I followed him to a room down the hall. The room is indeed fire-free. I quickly scanned the in-case-of-fire message on the back of the door, checked the window escape, and promptly passed out with my gear and boots on.
In the morning, I awake [alive] wondering if I dreamt the entire thing. I go down the smokey stairs past the charred other side of the hotel. The owner is so happy to see me [still alive] that he eats breakfast with me.
I returned a few years later, and the hotel fully recovered.
neverpennyless
10. Talkative Guy
I show up at the house, and a 60-year-old guy opens the door while on the phone. He's only wearing sweatpants. He signals for us to enter. He continues his conversation and ends with an I love you. He turns to us, says welcome, and apologizes for being on the phone.
He starts talking about his girlfriend, who he was talking with, and how she lives overseas. He mentions he has several GFs and boasts about being a ladies' man. He then starts to show us pictures.
These girls looked like they were young.
While sliding through the pic, he accidentally showed us one of their passports. This weirded us out a lot. We were in our early twenties and didn't really know what to do, so we said we were tired and wanted to sleep. He walked us to the room while rubbing his belly. Told us he makes breakfast in the morning.
We decided to sleep the night but left before he woke up. My friend slept on the bedroom door, so he couldn't sneak in. We got up super early and bolted.
We got super weird vibes from the guy and just felt gross/weird about the whole thing.
besidemyself300
11. Full of Creepy Facts
Stayed in a B&B in Pennsylvania that seemed cute enough. They did have a wall of antique dolls in the main room, but otherwise, there were no signs of weirdness.
That's until we were settled in the room. I noticed some scratches on the floor near a bookcase and realized it was a secret door after some inspection. When I asked the owner, who gave a creepy vibe, if it worked, he said yes and showed me that it opened to their office (which was a cluttered room with a computer and piles of crap).
It had a lock on its side, and when I asked if it was on my side, he smiled and said, "No." When I showed some concern that there was a camouflaged unlockable entrance to my room that they didn't tell me about, he just kept smiling.
Ghost_Farter
12. Mr. Tickles
When I was 12, my family took a vacation to Europe. At our hotel in Rome, there was this amazing indoor pool...and being a child of my age, I would have spent the entire vacation there if I could.
During one swimming excursion, some random gentleman, probably around 40-something, came over to me and started tickling my feet. My mother is with me but is preoccupied with one of my other siblings.
He also speaks English and starts teasing me for being ticklish and telling me I’m “simply adorable.” Through my giggles, I keep shyly asking him to stop. He doesn’t and just keeps teasing me and touching my feet and lower legs.
This went on for maybe 2 minutes tops before my mom saw what was happening and went into super protective mode and told him to back off.
roseofhammerfell
13. Teleportation Mystery
When I was like 14/15, I went with my family to Las Vegas, and we stayed off the main strip in a 2 bedroom suite. It was a smaller casino/hotel. My parents left to go out and enjoy the night while I stayed with my younger siblings.
They slept in the bedrooms, and I watched TV in the living room. I think I dozed off around midnight, and when I woke up, I was in a stairwell outside of the hotel room. I had no shoes on. I had no cell phone.
No room key.
I went to the front office and told them I was locked out of my room, and they believed me and gave me a key.
I still don't know why I was out there. To this day, I have never sleepwalked. I don't know what happened. Maybe I did sleepwalk, maybe something happened during those hours that I cannot remember.
But it was creepy enough for me to share.
mcgrumpy_pants
14. Fresh Room
I arrived late at a hotel for a business trip. The flight had a malfunction, so we had to land. They fixed it on the tarmac & we never deplaned. The room is already paid for, the confirmation number is in hand, etc.
I got there about 5 hours after I was supposed to be there. Of course, they gave away my room. I already wasn't happy from all the delays & I wasn't going anywhere. The event I was there for was in their hotel. I wanted my room. I was polite but resolutely firm.
They did some scrambling and asked if I would consider a damaged room under construction. "As long as the sheets are clean so I can go to bed, I don't care." was my reply.
Mistake.
The room they gave me was literally a crime scene. The case had been closed, so there was no legal issue to contend with, but someone had been killed (or nearly killed - not 100% sure) in that room.
They had primed over the blood stains on the walls & ceiling but had only taped down semi-clear plastic over the pooled blood on the carpets. Multiple small holes in the walls had obviously been patched & sanded, but they were MULTIPLE SMALL HOLES IN THE WALLS.
They gave me a completely new bed and TV from on-site inventory, so I was comfortable, but man, it was creepy as heck.
The creepiest part was the priming job. It was so obviously blood splatter. You could see where the person had been hit & where they fell. You could also see how they had tried to get up & where they had finally collapsed.
Banned_From_Subs
15. Insect Rush
Was in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua last year. Massive spiders all over the room.
Even woke up with a couple of little scorpions in my bed the first morning. The next night, I'm sitting at the bar, drinking and chatting with a mate. I feel a tickle on the back of my neck and think it's a mosquito or something.
Brush the back of my neck, and another freaking scorpion, this time way bigger, plops on the ground at my feet. Stared at it for a moment in shock, squealed like a girl, squashed it, and kept drinking.
crow_man
16. Black Spot
In Mexico, my girlfriend and I stayed a night in a hut in the jungle. No running water, no electricity. As we are from central Europe, we are not used to dangerous wildlife(spiders, scorpions, etc.). There was a beautiful cenote nearby, and at some point, it rained like crazy.
The daytime was terrific. The night, not so much.
In our hut was a bed with a mosquito net with huge holes in it. It was pitch black in the hut as we lay down and got comfortable trying to sleep. I felt a bit creeped out and decided to check the hut for insects with my phone's flashlight.
Bad idea. There were hundreds of giant spiders all over the walls and ceiling.
Not the night's sleep I had wrapped up like a mummy with every piece of clothing we had with us.
Ragnathegreat
17. Uninvited Guest
My spouse and I stayed at a massive hotel complex, which consisted of one hotel that bought almost every other hotel around it. We bought the online special and were put in one of the ancient acquisitions.
This odd 4x4 piece of plywood was hanging down from the ceiling just enough so it felt like someone could watch you through the crack, but you couldn't see in it. We hung up the do not disturb sign and went to tourists around.
We came back, and the TV was on at maximum volume. We left and returned, and the shower curtain fell down. It's a good thing it was only a one-night stay...that room just had the feeling of someone there.
TheOrangeTickler
18. Woman’s Whisper
When I was about 4, my family was at the resort in St. Kitts. I was swimming with some of the friends I made there when one of them spoke of a woman at the pool, calling her "retarded" I didn't know what that meant at the time.
She had some mental disability, and I don't know what it was.
At one point during the swim, I found myself in front of her and out of sight of my parents. I don't remember anything leading up to this moment, but she told me, "Close your eyes, and you'll get a big surprise." I did, not knowing any better, and she started hitting the top of my head with her fist and holding me underwater.
Luckily, my mom spotted this happening and stopped it.
The woman who tried to drown me had a helper who was supposed to keep an eye on her but was found sun tanning and not paying any attention at all. My mom lost it on her for not paying attention.
This whole thing was more scary than creepy, but it stuck with me ever since, so I thought I'd share.
cab757
19. Strange People, Strange Place
Not particularly creepy, but it's pretty bleak. I had been in Australia for about a week and decided to go straight to a farm to tick off the farm work for the second-year visa.
Arrived at this run-down house, with the internal walls covered in graffiti, reminiscent of a crack den, in the arsehole of nowhere. All the other lodgers look like broken men.
I was told the weekly shopping run isn't for two more days, so here's a loaf of bread each. Start to work the next day, picking runner beans, paid at $1.10 a kilo, busting my ass to make something like 50 bucks in 14 hours.
Slept in crammed beds in what we assumed used to be a living room, with plain bread for dinner. I did a few hours the next day until my mate stood up like screw this, I'm not having this, and straight back to Melbourne we went! I ended up in an amazing hostel with great people, earning $25 an hour, with memories I'll never forget.
Horror show averted!
thecrimpingcactus
20. Different Zone
I was visiting NYC with my wife and 1 year old.
My brother had made the hotel reservation for us, and we thought it would be nice. We arrived, checked in, and then found our way to our room. The hallways were a maze, and it took us a few minutes to find our room.
The room was sketchy, but it was late, and we were tired, so we started settling in. My wife had brought a quart of milk for our kid, and since the room didn’t have a fridge, she asked me to take it to the front desk and ask them if they had a fridge we could use.
I took the milk and headed into the maze/hallway. I got a bit turned around but eventually found the elevator. I got in, hit the L button, and rode the elevator down. When the door opened at the “lobby,” I was met with a dark, narrow hallway. I stupidly stepped out, confused as to what was going on.
There were several doors on both sides of the hallway, but all were locked. I walked down the hallway and eventually started to hear music playing. After a couple of minutes, I turned a corner and almost ran into two big guys.
I stopped and stared at them, wondering what was happening. After looking me up and down and pausing on the milk I was carrying, one of the two asked me, “What are you doing here?” I just stared for a few seconds and said, “I’m just trying to find the lobby.”
He then escorted me to the entrance of what turned out to be a strip club. After exiting, I saw the hotel about half a block up the street. Apparently, I took the elevator that the strippers would take with paying clients and had no idea.
I thought I was in the Twilight Zone for a few minutes.
lukelnk
21. Nothing But Darkness
A chalet in the state of Maine, Vermont, with three others. The lady at the "front desk" was approximately a billion years old with cloudy eyes, and her "front desk" was a small table next to a recliner in a room full of knick-knacks and china dolls.
The actual room was what I imagined a hotel room in the 40s would look like, and obviously, it had never been remodeled. The bathroom had a metal claw-foot tub.
The worst part was the door at the back of the room.
I assumed it would be another closet, but we opened it, and there was nothing but cold and darkness. We used the flashlight on our phones and discovered a long, wide, cement-walled hallway.
I assumed it was used to travel between rooms when the weather was bad, but the vibe it gave off was making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The night went smoothly, and nothing ever happened, but I still feel like we survived a night in a boring horror movie.
I've tried to look for it again but with no results. I'll have to ask my grandma who booked the trip.
MickeyBear
22. Night Steps
My wife and I stayed in a pretty well-known hotel in London. The rooms were pretty nice but had a door that allowed someone to travel between our room and the one next to us.
To do so, you needed to open the door in my room, and then someone had to open it in the neighboring room. There was only one handle on each door. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I saw someone moving around.
It is the dark and the middle of the night. I thought it was my wife. The next morning, I found my separator door ajar...
jack3tp0tat0
23. The Mime
I once stayed in a B&B, which had a shared bathroom. The first night, I got up at probably 2 am, and I was bursting for a pee. The bathroom was down the hallway, not too far, but it seemed like such an effort in my tired state.
I got to the bathroom and opened the door, and there was this guy just standing there, dressed head to toe in a mime costume. Face painted and everything. He was squatted down on the floor, but his trousers were still up.
I looked at him for a second. He gave me a wave with a smile and began just silently pushing. I just ran back to my room, locked the door, and decided to pee in a bottle. I'm still not sure if I was just really tired and seeing things or something, and it's seriously the strangest thing I've ever seen.
Jam-Polo
24. Walking Kettle
I went on a road trip through the USA a few years back. The night before I was due to return the rental van and fly home, I checked into a motel and transferred all my belongings into the room so I could pack my bags properly. I dumped it all on the desk on the other side of my room and promptly fell asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, the tea kettle from the RV was sitting on the pillow next to me.
Nothing else had moved.
It's such a small thing, but it creeped me the fudge out, and I still can't figure out exactly how it happened.
Oceanmyst
25. Like A Standee
My girlfriend works as a TV commercials producer and often travels to South America (mainly Argentina).
One night, she woke up at around 3 am to find a male hotel employee standing at the foot of her bed staring at her. But that’s not all.
The following day, a big mystery unfolds.
When they checked the CCTV, they found he had been doing it for hours that night and for the previous three nights.
[deleted]
26. Mental Hotel
Checked into a hotel on vacation. Everything was going okay. Woke up one night to erratic movement of the door handle as if someone was trying to get in or break the door down.
Always happened in the dead of the night when in deep sleep.
As soon as I woke up, it would stop. I spoke to a hotel manager about it, and he told me it was a patient who was recently released from a mental institute who does this as he still thinks he is locked up in the institute.
A combination of not taking his medication and sleepwalking makes him randomly try to kick doors down within the hotel. The family was very wealthy and connected, and the manager didn't want to kick up a fuss for chucking out someone who could shut his business down very quickly.
I left after a week because it got worse.
wwantid7
27. The Whisperer
Was staying in a youth hostel in Tel Aviv as a teenager. I remember being woken up in the middle of the night and someone saying, "It's ok, don't worry, go back to sleep."
I think I wasn't really fully awake, more of a half-awake state...Anyway when I got up in the morning, I found out my wallet had been stolen.
More awful than creepy, I guess...
stirls4382
28. Total Scam
I stayed in an Econolodge in Baltimore once, and the pic from the booking was not the hotel I was in. It was next to an abandoned Red Roof Inn, which was constantly flooded with hookers, and a homeless shelter that seemed to have no volunteers and a ton of homeless people.
My room smelled like mildew, had cigarette burns and blood stains on the blanket, and had some friendly rats scampering around. When I went to the front desk, the gentleman handed me a baggie of rat poison and said, "Sprinkle this. They will die."
The following morning, as I stepped outside to the saving grace that was Dunkin' Donuts at the corner, there was a woman peeing in the parking lot, having a conversation with her friends while they were hitting the pipe.
The place was the worst. Thought I could be stabbed at any moment.
yannoneyams
29. Self-Locking Mechanism
Stayed in New York City recently. A couple of things happened in that room. During the night, our spare room key went missing. It was on the desk, and we turned that room upside down, looking everywhere for it, but never found it.
The safe randomly stopped letting us into it. All our cash was there, and we were sure of the number. It's more of an annoyance than creepy, but still.
The last one was when we returned to the room one night, and our card wouldn't work in the door. We went to reception and sorted everything out, but when we got up, the room was locked from the inside by one of those latches that swung to the side.
We had a good fiddle with it once the handyman came up to try and get us in, and u cannot fathom how it locked itself. It wasn't a heavy latch, but it didn't swing on its own.
Mcachead
30. Dodged A Danger
I was on a trip around Southeast Asia in 2012. I was staying at this hotel/guesthouse thing in Cambodia with my traveling companion.
It was the middle of the night, and both of us woke up to the sound of our door handle jiggling. Then the door opened. My friend said, "What the fudge?" In a confused, just woken-up state, and this scared the person off.
We needed him/her running away, and we asked each other if "that really just happened?"
To make things even stranger, I got up and locked the door, and both of us just went back to sleep as if nothing happened.
I wonder what would have happened if we hadn't heard the person come in... As I said, the door was locked, and we heard the person trying to pick the lock or do whatever he/she did.
And knowing people are home doesn't seem like a smart time to rob someone.
razor787
31. Name Drop
A drunk guy at a hotel bar kept creeping on me and trying to demand that the bartender pour me drinks on his tab (I refused). I didn't give this guy my real first name (and definitely not my room number), although he had already seen my last name on some work stuff I had with me. Nonetheless, that night, I was trying to fall asleep...
My room phone rings.
I answer it, and he slurs, "Your real name is Megalodon319?" He then goes on a drunken, malicious rant, and I have to unplug the phone to get him to stop calling.
With just my last name, he got the hotel staff to tell him my real name (plus God knows what else) and give him my room phone number.
I was livid.
megalodon319
32. Multiple Persons
I was staying in Birmingham, AL, at a Hyatt. Nothing crazy. Nothing obviously creepy.
One night, around 2 am, I woke up to a man screaming. Like, stabbed in the heart scream. I sat there in a panic, wondering if I should call someone, but when I didn't hear anything else, I chalked it up to a dream.
The next night, I woke up around 3 am and had this horrible feeling that someone was in my room. I rolled over, and there was an old man sitting on the AC (it was boxed in), smoking, looking away from me. I stared at him for a few seconds, and he turned to look at me.
So I shot out of bed, ready to run, and no one was there.
I don't have lucid dreams. While I have vivid dreams, they are not THAT vivid. I can describe that man, and yet he was never there.
Graiid
33. Worst Stay
We were in Spain and left the town because Dad had to do some work at the library in a neighboring town. We came back late, and the hotel had moved all our stuff from one room to a more expensive room, claiming that someone else had a reservation.
We claimed bullcrap and started packing. When they realized we were serious, they let us stay in the more expensive room at the lower rate.
We've had weirdo neighbors all over the place. Some Muslim guy was always arguing with his wife in the middle of the night after prayer time. This guy would go out in the hallway and work with his hammer on a bench. BANG BANG in the middle of the night.
Dad once went out in his underwear and asked him.
Dad: Need a hand?
Guy: Oh, I didn't know you were asleep.
Mindraker
34. Nightmare History
My company would put us up in the Shilo Inn downtown when we were in Salt Lake City. A coworker of mine was awakened in the middle of the night by the sounds of a bunch of kids in the hallway. It went on for longer than he could tolerate, so he opened the room door to tell them to hush -- only to find the hallway empty.
He could still hear the children, so, figuring they were in an adjoining room, he called down to the front desk to complain. The man at the front desk claimed to be certain there were no kids staying on that floor but that he was certain the noise would subside in a bit. He offered to send up some earplugs.
My coworker was a bit annoyed (how can you say there are no kids here when I'm hearing kids?) but went back to bed and eventually fell asleep.
The next day, when he was checking out, a different clerk made the mistake of asking the routine question, "Was everything satisfactory with your stay?" My coworker told her about the noisy kids and how the other clerk had dismissed his complaints.
The clerk looked a little uncomfortable and said in a half whisper:
Clerk: We are not supposed to talk about our history with guests. But please do a Google search for 'Rachel David' and you'll understand what happened to you. We get similar complaints every few weeks, and we try to never put kids on that floor.
bradmajors69
35. Creaking Sound
It wasn't ghost creepy, but just a little PSA for you jittery folk out there:
If you're going to Japan and booking with AirBnB, make sure it isn't one of those tiny post-war-era homes.
I booked one like that last year when I went to Kyoto. It was the quietest neighborhood I've ever been to, and it was a 2nd home that the owner leased out, so I was the only tenant for my 3-night stay.
EVERYTHING was plywood, and because it was in a quiet little neighborhood, it felt like there wasn't anyone else for miles around. My room was lit by a haphazardly lightbulb hanging from a ceiling that flickered occasionally like in a cheap b-horror movie.
Any movement caused creaks and bumps, and the cold air made those happen constantly around me as the plywood expanded and contracted through the day.
I'm just lucky the grudge didn't come out of the freaking TV during my stay.
marcuschookt
36. Shameless Man
In early 2000, I had just turned 18 and worked abroad. I was in the Czech Republic and did some shifts in this tiny remote mountaintop hotel. They also let me stay there as long as I worked. At night, I could hear wolves howling.
There was this Maître d'. An older gentleman, tanned, with a pencil mustache and super formal behavior. We had never exchanged words before this:
One night after my shift, I was sitting alone at the restaurant when he approached me and asked if I wanted to go for a walk.
At night. In the woods. Why?
Outside the patio, there wasn't any source of light before the town below the mountain, not even on the road leading down. It was absolute darkness, and this guy wanted to take me to the woods for some reason. No thanks.
I politely declined, but he was persistent. I asked why we should go to the woods, and he said, "Why not? It's fun". No, it's not. It's dangerous. He claimed he knew the area well and started to get weirdly desperate about it. After multiple NOs, he left. I felt so weirded out about it that I just went into my room and called it the night. Also, an odd side note that I never saw him again.
So, it's not a super creepy story, but it's the creepiest I have encountered so far. Also, I want to add that, most likely, the guy was just lonely and not a murderer. It was a remote location with few customers or "new faces."
On that trip, I got a chance to visit Staropramen's brewery, and it was the best thing ever.
Tlnen
37. The Stalker
This was at a hotel in one of Singapore's nice, not-so-nice places.
I can't remember when, but I went back to the hotel. At the elevator, there was some other dude waiting there, but he didn't push the button, so I had to. At that time, I thought he was a lazy freak.
Entered the lift, but he didn't push a floor either. Years of playing ss13 have given me a healthy case of paranoia toward the actions of others. Still, I haven't come to a conclusion yet.
It might be he just was on the same floor as me.
Stepped up, the halls split into two. The guy didn't go first, and he walked to follow only after I headed towards my room.
Warning bells in my head: this may be how I die. He continued on, but he still followed me down the windy paths, and I just took a turn from my room. HE WAS STILL FOLLOWING.
At this point, I acted as if I had headed in the wrong direction by mistake and rushed to my room.
Dude actually yelled behind me as if I did something wrong. I didn't get out until the next morning.
omnitricks
38. Sudden Twist
I was in Spain, in a nice vacation fancy hotel. In the room next to us was a young German couple. They were always partying at their fullest. One night, I woke up because I had a terrible nightmare.
I heard sirens and terrible screaming.
The hotel rooms have (next to normal ones) little windows inside the hotel. It was open. I could hear every word from the police. The girl was drunk and brought another guy for sexy time to the room.
The boyfriend wasn’t amazed, enraged, and tried to stab the guy, but he accidentally killed the woman, who must have tried to stop him.
It was pretty sad.
Fl1p1
39. I Was The Creepy One
I guess I was the cause of a creepy hotel story. We had a class trip where the 'hotel' we were staying at was actually a small collection of cabins in a woody/grassy area.
Apparently, a great majority of my classmates had agreed to go on a run to a convenience store one evening, but there were maybe 6-7 of us who were unaware of the plans. So suddenly, from our perspective, everyone was suddenly gone, and we were all alone.
We were going around looking for people, and we had split up. I went up to my cabin with a balcony on it and decided to try to survey the area to see if I could spot a teacher or one of the staff there. I saw my friends on the ground and waved at them to say hi and let them know where I was.
I didn't realize that I had just washed my hair, so it was long, dark, hanging down, and kind of stringy-looking. I was wearing a white nightgown, and from the perspective of my friends on the ground, I was backlit by the light coming from inside the room.
So picture a Ring-esque girl waving down at a group of pre-teens in the woods who suddenly think everyone has vanished.
[deleted]
40. The Revelation
Went to a hotel and arrived at night. My brother and I went to check out the pool and whatnot, and he started to chase me, pretending to throw me into the pool, so I freaked out and ran to our room.
My brother was like, “Noooo, that’s not our room,” and I busted in (the room was either open or unlocked because it was just sliding doors or something because it was in the islands).
I just saw two people making out. They sorta froze seeing a little 5-year-old boy stare at and nope, right the fudge outta there.
To that poor couple, I accidentally interrupted. I’m so sorry. I legitimately thought it was my room and didn’t mean to intrude.
I hope I didn’t ruin your night.
[deleted]
41. Born Ready
My friend recently told me this story. Every summer, he travels through Central and South America for a couple of months. One year, he stayed in Roatan for a few weeks.
In the middle of the night, he heard a loud knocking on his door; he was by himself and knew no one from the area. He grabbed a knife, sat down in the kitchen, and waited.
They continued knocking for a while, but they eventually gave up and went away. He talked to the hotel owner the next day, and she basically told him if he had answered the door, he'd probably be dead.
He took off and hasn't been back since.
igottopetthedog
42. Strange Knock
14 years ago, I was visiting Taipei with my family. Our room was on the fifth floor of the hotel (it was really the fourth floor, but labeled "5" because four is unlucky).
In the dead of night, I woke up to the sound of knocking. But it wasn't coming from our door... it was coming from the direction of the windows. There were no balconies for a person to stand on, just normal windows, which meant that someone knocking on that fifth-floor window was impossible.
And yet, the window-knocking persisted. Mind racing, I wondered what inhuman, unnatural entity was there, just on the other side of the window. I was too terrified to move.
It took all of my strength to whisper to my parents, who were on the next bed over. "Do you hear that?" They woke up, and I repeated my question, my voice hoarse with dread. I didn't dare look in their direction, as their bed was closer to the window -- and the unholy knocking.
My parents laughed. The knocking sound had been my mother farting in her sleep.
sneakychickens
43. Creepy Piano
I was staying at a little hotel in Bisbee, Arizona, which is practically a ghost town. The hotel had a pretty grand entryway with a marble staircase, and there is a chip in the staircase that they claim came from Pancho Villa riding his horse through the hotel back in the day.
Anyway, one night while I was there, I woke up very early (maybe like 4:00 am) for some reason. I heard the faint sound of a piano, so I decided to investigate because I didn’t remember a piano in the lobby of this place.
I went downstairs to the lobby, and I couldn’t hear it anymore, so I wandered back up the stairs to my floor and followed the sound down a dark hallway. It got louder as I got closer to the end, so I knew I was on the right track.
At the end of the hallway, there was a door. And I listened to it and heard the piano coming from behind it.
It wouldn’t have been all that creepy had the door not been padlocked shut.
aerosolbuttcum
44. Big Secrets
It was an Airbnb, but my now-husband and I got a private room in a Spanish guy's apartment in Berlin for 19€ a night in the middle of summer. It seemed amazing. He was welcoming and hilarious. We cooked and ate dinner all together, and he regaled us with stories of studying in Berlin. It was a great evening.
We eventually called it a night, waved a cheery goodnight as we closed our bedroom door, then stared, horrified, at what appeared to be a ~2-ft spray of dried blood up the back of the door.
We've never panicked quite so completely and quietly as we did in those few moments at the pink spray. We made hushed and wild plans to climb out the window before we remembered we were on the third floor.
We grabbed the little camping knife that we'd brought with us to defend ourselves at the undoubted throat-slashing that would take place at any moment. I put my big backpack against the door like that would stop a murderer on a rampage.
Then we realized that dried blood wouldn't be pink.
We worked out that it was some kind of soft drink that must have exploded when someone tried to open it. Boy, was it hard to sleep that night, though - the adrenaline was hard to come down from.
the_procrastinata
45. Unforeseen Horror
About 14 years ago, I set off on a 13-month round-the-world trip. One of my first stops was Kilkenny, Ireland. I caught a bus from town and arrived at Foulksrath Castle. Built-in the late 1300s, in 2004, it was a hostel that cost only 14 EUR per night for a bed. I had never spent the night in a castle before, much less for 14 EUR!
I set my things on a bed and went outside to socialize with other tourists in the late afternoon. There were a couple of guys on the roof, and they yelled out for us to join them for the sunset. I LOVE sunsets, so I started up the stone steps, first a circular staircase and then a very narrow last flight of stairs to the roof.
While I was climbing, I heard someone behind me, but when I got to the top of the stairs and turned around, there was no one behind me. I found this odd, but I enjoyed the sunset anyway.
At dinner time, the guests all cook in the kitchen and then dine by candlelight. The castle caretaker then told us the story that the castle was haunted – one ghost made the air feel cold, another female ghost smelled like flowers, and the last ghost ran up and down the stairs. The hair on my arms stood on end – was I followed by a ghost?
I didn’t sleep much that night in the creaky old bunk bed.
Unfortunately, a few years later, the caretaker resigned, and Foulksrath Castle closed its doors to backpackers in 2009. It’s privately owned today.
thehotflashpacker