This Hotel Has Much Room For Improvement

It’s my last night in a hotel in Baltimore, and I’ll be getting up early the next morning to catch a flight, so I go to bed quite early, maybe nine pm. I’m dozing off and I hear some rattling, like someone’s trying to open my door. They can’t do it because they don’t have the right key, and anyway, I’ve put the safety latch on. The noise stops, and I assume they’ve spotted that they have the wrong room, or maybe I just imagined it because I was half asleep.

A few minutes later, however, the door suddenly opens and gets caught on the safety latch, making a huge noise, at which point I scream in terror. There’s a curt apology and they shut the door again.

Terrified, I pick up the room phone and try to dial reception. The phone is clearly broken or not connected, and I’m in too much of a state to work out what is going on. I fling some clothes on over my pyjamas and rush down to reception.

Reception explains that someone misread their room number, thought my room was their room, and tried to get in. When they failed, they found a security guard loitering around who, instead of checking with reception if they had the right key or room number, just decided to use their master key to get into my room.

While they’re explaining this, the culprits — idiot guest and even more idiot security guard — are stood right by me and clearly think it’s hilarious that I’m so upset about this. I’m sure it’s terribly funny to make someone think they were about to be murdered in their bed!

I didn’t get any sleep at all that night because my heart was racing. I did, however, get that night refunded by the hotel, who did accept liability for their receptionist’s poor handwriting and their security guard’s spectacularly bad judgement.