What To Do If Housekeeping Steals? How To Notice & Respond

Many hotel establishments aim to help their guests be as comfortable as they can during their stay.

This is exactly why most hotels come with housekeeping staff designated to keep a guest’s room clean, organized, and comfortable from the moment they check in.

While this is great, this also means that housekeepers are constantly in guests’ private spaces, and many times more than most, guests find themselves stolen from by housekeepers.

Hotel housekeepers sometimes do inappropriate things like looking through a guest’s belongings. However, sometimes they take it one step further and take the guest’s belongings.

As a guest who has trusted the hotel establishment and the staff to keep you and your belongings safe, what do you do when you find out hotel housekeeping has stolen from you?

Table of Contents

Is Your Housekeeping Stealing?

Stealing in hotels is not uncommon, and many times, hotel housekeepers are the perpetrators of this crime. This is because while they may not be the only hotel staff with key access, they are best placed for this act.

Housekeeping stealing signs notice — Housekeeping stealing signs

With easy access to a guest’s room in the name of cleaning it, housekeepers can easily steal from guests and sometimes even go undiscovered.

Travelers who use hotel rooms are often advised to keep their belongings as well as they can.

But how well can you keep your items when housekeeping has easy access to your room?

At first, it is easy to wonder if your housekeeping steals from you or if you have just grown quite careless.

However, before you realize it (and it might even be too late) you start to notice a trend and a worrying amount of missing items.

It might be the money you kept safe in your closet.

It might be the missing jewelry that you somehow didn’t notice at first. It might be the clothes you thought you forgot at your previous location.

someone in hotel has been stealing from you — Someone has been stealing from you

Regardless of what it is, the signs become glaring, and suddenly it hits you: someone has been stealing from you.

Like the stages of grief, the initial shock that comes with the sudden realization that a hotel staff you trusted has been stealing from you passes, and your denial becomes anger.

You start to wonder how this could happen right underneath your nose if you will ever discover who did it, or if you will ever get your stolen items back.

Most importantly, you start to wonder what the next step will be:

Should you speak to the establishment’s manager?
Or should you approach and question the housekeepers by yourself?

The next steps you take after discovering or suspecting that housekeeping stole from you will determine how the ending events play out.

It will determine if you recover your properties, catch the suspect, or count your losses and move on.

What To Do If Housekeeping Steals From You

When you notice or suspect that housekeeping has stolen something from you, the best thing to do will be to contact hotel security and tell them what your suspicions are.

This will trigger an investigation that will hopefully lead to the suspect and missing items being discovered.

housekeeping stealing advice — Taking action if housekeeping steals from you

This investigation will be done by checking out the security cameras to know which housekeeping staff cleaned the room, questioning every concerned staff, and confronting suspects.

However, before all the investigative steps are taken, you, as the guest, have several actions to take.

These include the following.

Check Your Room

There is a thin line between being careless enough to lose your items and being stolen from them.

Check your hotel room — Look everywhere before making a report

More often than not, guests think they have been robbed by hotel staff when in reality, they have simply misplaced the items or forgotten where they were kept.

While it is important to report missing items to the hotel establishment (whether the items are stolen or misplaced), it is equally essential to ensure that the items are not in the room. After all, missing items usually turn up in the weirdest places.

If you suspect that a housekeeping staff stole from you, look everywhere before making a report.

Some places you can check include:

Your bed
Under your mattress
Under your bed
Under the pillows
The closet/wardrobe, cupboards, side tables
Any crevice, hole, or corners

Perform an extensive and detailed search of the room to ensure that the items are not there. Chances are you placed the items in an area of the room that you forgot.

Check Your Bags

If the first step was unproductive, it is important to check your bags and possessions.

While this might be time-consuming (especially for a small missing object) seeing that every second counts, it is essential to confirm that the items are no longer in your room.

Packing clothes for a trip to Japan autumn

This will not only be important to help you save face and not look stupid when the items somehow magically turn up but also show security that you already took several futile steps to find your missing items.

Retrace Your Steps

Retrace your steps and go back to the places you visited before you noticed the missing items.

The Items may be last seen at those places where you didn’t even realize you left them.

Go to the places you last went within and outside the hotel. Map out these previous locations, follow the exact directions as you once passed, and remember to keep a lookout as you did so.

Call Security

If you did all these and still cannot find your missing or stolen items, the best step to take is to immediately call security and the establishment’s manager you can.

Be methodical and not immediately cause a racket by raising an alarm.

Raising an alarm may prompt the suspect to find a better hiding place for the items they stole.

What Happens When You Already Left?

Although these steps may be easy to take if you discover your items have been stolen while still at the hotel establishment, they may not be ideal for when you already left the establishment.

When you discover some of your items missing after leaving a hotel, it is best to return to the establishment as soon as you can.

If this option is not feasible, calling the hotel to lay a complaint will be the next best action to make.

Depending on the value of the item and how serious the situation is, you may decide to involve local enforcement.

Keeping Your Property Safe

While you can’t entirely protect yourself from being stolen from by housekeeping, you can stack your odds by taking measures to keep your belongings safe.

Keep a low profile and don’t draw attention to yourself or your belongings. Keep your expensive items out of sight and try to pay for services with your credit card when you can.

Add an extra layer of protection to your room to discourage theft in your absence. Doing things like leaving the TV on so the housekeeping thinks you are around.

Many hotel rooms come with a safe. Use the safe to secure your items.

Keep track of all your belongings.

In Conclusion

Although these protective measures work perfectly, if you suspect housekeeping stole from you, it is best to take action right away.

Most housekeeping staff and colleagues are honest and, often, long-term employees. So, don’t let on rotten apple change your overall opinion of the hotel staff.

Most are very nice and honest.