Colleague Karlijn Bernoster looked up strangely last weekend when she stepped into the bathroom of her holiday home in Gelderland. On the ground was a chain with a photo of an older man, with the request ‘Don’t resuscitate me’.
The so-called non-resuscitation medal was probably forgotten by the previous holiday maker. “Bizarre that the cleaners left that!” She says. The necklace was taken to the reception, hoping that it will return to the rightful owner.
Top 10 crazy objects left behind
The necklace is not the only strange object that sometimes remains in a hotel room or holiday home. In the top 10 of striking forgotten objects from Hotels.com last summer, among other things, a rice cooker, blender, a watch with a value of 6 million dollars, keys from a Ferrari and animals such as a Hagedis and a chick.
In addition, piles of cash and a Hermès Birkin bag, of which the cheapest copy quickly costs around 10,000 euros, in the doubtful top, for which 400 hotels shared their insights.
Sex toys
Sex toys are also regularly left behind. Trudy Kamerman from Den Helder, for example, found a strap -on dildo in the bedside table during her job as Floor Supervisor in the Hilton Hotel at Schiphol. Including accompanying pleasure -length magazine with images of people who had sex with …. animals.
“At least an unsavory surprise,” she says. Normally, found objects are stored for one year, but she suspects that these objects left behind were immediately thrown away.
Reishack: Put a shoe in your hotel safe
Joske Kuut from Wolvega has a similar story. During her position at the reception of a chic hotel, where rooms quickly cost 400 euros per night and also the necessary Dutch celebrities, one of the cleaners came to her with an ‘attribute’ that she had found in a bedside table. “She asked me what it was,” she recalls. “I tackled it: it turned out to be a butt plug (a sex toy for anal use)! New! I immediately thrown it off.”
In addition to sex toys, dental prostheses are also frequently left behind items: according to the Hotel Room Innsights Report, about 10 percent of the hotels surveyed reported that dentures are found, but also complete leg prostheses.
Often left
In the top of less striking things left, it includes charging cords, power banks, makeup, toiletries and dirty clothing. Mobile phones and passports are also on that list.
The latter does not always have to lead to an emergency passport: an employee of a hotel drove more than 100 kilometers to return a passport to the rightful owner, another ran through a number of streets to give the forgotten items to a cruise -hole whose cruise ship was about to leave.
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What happens with objects left behind?
Found objects are stored by a hotel for an average of three months to a year. Some hotels have a special department for it, and contact the booker of the room, if known. Others use their own website or online find platforms such as Ilost, where they place the items so that the owner can report.
For a fee, the online service deli verback sends forgotten and found items to and from airport, hotel, Airbnb, ship and rental car, when you switch on the service. Often found items are thrown away by hotels, sometimes donated.
That way you will never forget anything again
A method tried by aircraft staff is not to forget important objects to put them in the safe together with one shoe. After all, a single shoe in the suitcase or at the foot is noticed quickly. Although a rice cooker or leg prosthesis in the safe is of course a bit tricky, and sex toys are more convenient in bed than in a safe.