Hotel Guests Confused After Finding Their Belongings Placed on Towels by Housekeeping

We’re over halfway through August, which means summer will be winding down sooner than later. Fortunately, there’s still enough time to do one of my personal favorite summertime activities: travel. Traveling on road trips or even the occasional plane ride has always been a favorite pastime of mine. I especially love when the trip involves staying at a hotel for a few nights. There’s just something about being able to eat, watch TV, and scroll on your phone in bed all day without much judgment.

Another perk of staying at a hotel is by far the fact that most locations accommodate their guests with daily housekeeping (if yours doesn’t, NEVER book there again!) For the most part, live-in housekeeping can be a great way to focus on your trip instead of chores you would normally do at home. Unfortunately, one guest discovered just how inconvenient some cleaners can be and documented the ordeal on TikTok.

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As someone who has been in and out of a fair share of hotels, I didn’t think much about the experience would surprise me at this point. However, when I saw TikTok user Kevin Harrish’s (@kevinharrish) 28-second video, I could no longer say I had seen it all.

On Aug. 14, 2023, Kevin turned his phone’s camera on to give his followers an inside view of the hotel he was staying in with his wife, Taylor. The couple explained in a previous TikTok that they were visiting Cincinnati, Ohio for the Red Bull Flugtag event.

I’m not sure what exactly a Flugtag is (even with Taylor’s lovely explanation), but that’s beside the point. The point is that due to the Flugtag, Kevin and his wife stayed in a hotel during their trip.

While returning to their room from an outing in the area, the guests came home to see that their space looked utterly different from where they left it. The housekeeping staff had obviously entered their room while they were gone, but Kevin and Taylor noticed something they had never seen before.

As Kevin turns the camera to the room, you can see all of his and his wife’s belongings sitting under bathroom towels, which are generally suitable for drying yourself off after a shower — and not much else.

“I've never seen this before,” Kevin says in the TikTok. “They, like, gathered all of our belongings and put them on towels for some reason. I don't know what this is about.”

Throughout the video, Kevin continues sharing how shocked he was by what he witnessed from the housekeepers. The TikToker also expressed his confusion about what happened in his hotel room while captioning the video.

“Why did they put all of our stuff on towels???” the user asked. “Did they think our laptops were going to leak???”

I believe Kevin’s shock was well deserved, as I too have never seen my personal belongings under multiple towels at any 3, 4, or 5-star hotel I’ve ever visited (yes, I said 3-star — like you haven’t). However, Kevin and I seemed far more surprised than those in his comments section.

Underneath the TikTok, several users had theories of why the housekeepers left Kevin and Taylor’s belongings in towels. One user said the gesture was a “cleaner” option than going their things alone.

Others were more concerned that Kevin and his wife had multiple belongings on the floor before the housekeepers cleaned their space — including their pillows.

“Dang, y’all had a lot out,” one user said. “I don’t let them come in to clean when I have so much out, tbh I leave that dnd sign up.”

“Pillows on a hotel floor is wild,” another pointed out.

Many other users who worked in the service industry weighed in as well. One commenter explained that the towels were in place to show guests that they “actually cleaned and didn’t go around the stuff you had laid out.”

Nonetheless, I’m sure Kevin will stay elsewhere the next time he’s in Cincy!