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Hotel Peeping Toms Not Limited to Pretty Sportscasters
We were just starting to get over the uncomfortable idea that the creepy stalker of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was actually helped on his perv mission by a hotel staffer when we came across this news last night--a family staying at a TownPlaces Suites Hotel outside Denver were also the victims of a hidden camera placed inside their hotel room.
Robert Reams and his family checked into their hotel room during a vacation in August. But while they were there, they had no idea that someone was watching them. WOWT TV reports:
From a hole nearly invisible to the eye, David Fugate was in the room with the family. The hole caught the attention of a hotel employee after the family checked out. "The maintenance people poked a pin in the hole and it poked back. They went and got a knife and cut it open to look inside," says Reams. "When they looked inside the wall they found a camera." Fugate had been observing the Reams family from an adjacent room using a wireless camera.
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Where is The Cleanest Hotel in The World?
Health and safety not top of the list when you’re deciding on a hotel? Us neither, though spending the past four days laid low with a stomach bug in Egypt has made us think twice.
Luckily for hygiene freaks and the walking wounded, H&S hotel experts Check Safety First have produced a list of the most hygienic hotels in the 10 countries they work in – from the Czech Republic and Germany to Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Topping the list is the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos Parador in Santiago de Compostela. Apparently it has “clearly shown its commitment to the well-being of its guests”. Perhaps that’s because it’s had over 500 years to practice customer service.
Hygiene and history will cost you, mind – rooms start at €231 ($345), although if you’re under 35 you can bag a room for a relatively teeny €110 ($164) with the Young Persons Getaway offer.
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Erin Andrews Stalker Asked For, and Received, a Guest Room Next to Hers
Last Friday, the creepy stalker who videotaped sexy ESPN reporter Erin Andrews through a peephole in her hotel room was found, arrested and charged with one count of interstate stalking using harassing and intimidating surveillance. But it turns out, Michael David Barrett wasn't just a clever predator on the hunt for his prey. Oh no, he had some help from the hotel.
A lawyer for ESPN blasted the management at Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University for failing to protect Andrews. The reason why? Computer records show that Barrett requested and was given a room next to Andrews and that their rooms were located in an alcove off the main hallways. It even shows up on the computer records as "GST RQST TO RM NXT TO [Andrews]." So much for guest safety and privacy, huh?
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Carbon Monoxide Leak Shuts Down Questionable-Looking MD Hotel
The first thing we think about when we arrive at a hotel is promptly plunking down our bags and collapsing onto the bed, our greatest worry being how quickly room service can be delivered. Worry about potential carbon monoxide poisoning? Um, not so much. Granted, the Americana Hotel, located in Ocean City, Maryland, is no Ritz or Le Méridien (observe the stellar pictures above), but there are certain core safety standards that all lodgings must adhere to, and the law agrees.
According to a report from local outlet The Dispatch:
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The Erin Andrews Peeping Incident: Isolated Creep or Common Occurrence?
Here's one, if you haven't heard it already, that will send tingles up your spine: blonde ESPN reporter Erin Andrews — the crush object of many a sports fan (and many a lady-fan, really) — was changing in her (still unidentified) hotel room while a still-at-large creeper filmed her through what looks like a peephole. Ugh.
The video footage was uploaded to a website and is still making its way around the internet, though an expert source interviewed by Deadspin believes that the footage was shot from an adjoining hotel room using "a gooseneck or fiber-optic camera [threaded] through a hole in the wall about a quarter-inch across."
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Will a Door Stop Alarm Make Your Hotel Room Extra Safe?
In light of the super-scary news that two women were attacked in Boston hotels recently (one was robbed; one was killed — police suspect it was the same attacker), we know you can never be too careful. While these women granted access to their attacker under the premise of a business transaction (massage services), it should definitely serve as a wakeup call to travelers: the world is a scary place and, unfortunately, you're not always 100% protected when you check into a hotel.
But what can you do? Here's one suggestion, which comes to us via the blog TravelingMamas: invest in a Door Stop Alarm. Not a bad idea for those of us who want to be on the extra-cautious side, no?
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The Chinese Hotel Gas Mask Dilemma
Believe it or not, we have actually seen a gas mask for guests in a Chinese hotel before — in the Aloft Beijing, to be precise. These gas masks are apparently not so rare in Chinese hotels, and they should help you survive if you have to evacuate the building in case of a fire.
Surprising, but we get it. What has bamboozled us, however, is the gas masks apparently available at the Hunan Civil Aviation Hotel in Changsha: you have to pay 200 yuan ($30) for them, as Swedish blogger Jonna recently discovered.
Several problems here. Do you pay for it in advance, judging on how likely you think the fire risk will be? Do you grab your wallet at the first sign of a fire? And the worst bit: the room has three beds, but only one gas mask. Is it only the fastest credit card grabber who survives?
[Photo: Jonna Wibelius]
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Ahwahnee Hotel Deemed Potentially Unsafe During an Earthquake
The historic Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park may be unsafe in an earthquake, park officials have concluded. According to the Associated Press, a study revealed the hotel "does not meet modern seismic safety standards and risks partial collapse in a major earthquake." Yikes.
Built in 1927, the structure — with reinforced-concrete walls — may not be strong enough to keep guests safe during a large tremor.
Per the AP:
"Because of the localized structural failures, there is the potential for the loss of human lives," said the study by URS Corp., an engineering and construction company. "The extensive damage that is expected will likely cause the building to be evacuated after such an earthquake."
The retrofit options the consultants proposed would cost between $17.9 and $22.3 million, and would require the hotel to be left empty for two years. Park officials did not say Thursday whether they planned to follow those recommendations, but said the latest cost estimate for the project was in the $20 million range.
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Are You Safe in Your Hotel Lobby?
If you can't air your (figurative) dirty laundry in the middle of a hotel lobby, then where can you? According to FOX News (and okay we'll agree) hotel safety includes staying mum outside of your closed and locked room. While this surely isn't a problem for hotel guests bent on clandestine meet-ups, we can just imagine some conventioneers yelling their room numbers to each other across a hotel bar, only to return to a room emptied of their laptop.
Aside from soliciting hotel safety tips for single women from Traveling Mamas blogger Beth Blai, Fox News points out a fact we'd hardly noticed:
It’s also become standard front desk policy to write down, rather than verbally communicate, guests’ room numbers upon check in. If a hotel staffer does announce your room number within earshot of other guests, it’s well within your rights to request a different room.
They continue on to discuss faulty door locks, and remembering to secure any balcony doors as well; all valid warnings. We'll dispense with all the safety idioms and get straight to the point: just because you're swathed in luxury and paying through the nose to have all those concierges and valets on call doesn't guarantee a room like a bank vault. Still, it pays not to forget that common sense is the best defense.
[Photo: Smart Access]
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Are You Safe In Your Hotel Room?
The NY Times has a bit of a frightening article out today on the status of hotel room safety. We all know that crazy stuff happens in hotel rooms but yet we never think it will happen to us. Maybe we should think again.
[N]ew surroundings often lull guests into a false sense of security. That is what happened to Glenn Haussman during his stay in October at a luxury resort in Phoenix. On the final morning of his stay, he woke up to find his wallet missing. He soon realized that someone had climbed over the adjacent balconies and entered his second-floor room through the balcony door he had left open.
Oh god, that is A)ambitious on the thief's part and B)making us reconsider all those cool rooms with balconies that we've been drooling over.
Add all that paranoia to this video that Gadling posted about how to crack open an in-room safe, we are starting to seriously second-guess our in-room safety. (That video is a little complicated to follow but it does show how vulnerable in-room safes are, if you are a whiz with a toolbox and paperclips.)
So we wanna know: how safe do you feel in hotel rooms?
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